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Last week, commercial flights in the United Kingdom were heavily disrupted by an outage at National Air Traffic Services (NATS), the firm responsible for keeping the nation’s air traffic control systems up and running. Thousands of flights were impacted by the outage, and, in the aftermath of the incident, rumors emerged that a military flight plan may have been the trigger for the major system shutdown.
Now, however, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has refuted these claims, with the BBC noting that the MoD said that it did not believe there to be any indication of error on its part. Elsewhere, reporting on the matter by AJ Bell has highlighted the fact that a cyber attack has also been ruled out as a cause of the outage. For now, the investigation continues, as the relevant authorities look to pinpoint the cause.
The Ministry Of Defence Protests Its Innocence
Following the glitch on Tuesday, September 8, the UK’s air traffic control system was down for hours, with various stakeholders looking to point fingers and ascertain who was to blame once things were back up and running. Three days later, reports emerged in the Financial Times that a flight plan filed by a British military aircraft was to blame, with anomalous data reportedly causing the glitch.
The publication cited various sources who claimed to be close to the matter, although, while it reportedly involved a military aircraft, two of the four sources did add that it was not specifically the military nature of the flight that resulted in the disruption. The MoD was quick to refute the accusation that it was behind the outage, and is confident that the ongoing NATS investigation will clear its name. It said that:
“We do not believe there’s any indication of an error on the part of the military. (…) It would be inappropriate for us to comment any further while that investigation is ongoing.”
The Outage Caused Considerable Disruption
Whatever was behind the outage, it inarguably had a considerable impact on aviation in the United Kingdom on Tuesday, September 8. According to coverage on the matter by AeroTime, the issue was first identified at 1:46 PM local time on that day, with the relevant fix not reported until 4:40 PM, almost three hours later. Normal service resumed by 7:30 PM local, but, by then the damage had been done.
Indeed, data made available by Cirium, an aviation analytics company, highlighted the fact that more than 2,000 flights in and out of the UK’s airports were impacted on September 8 and 9. These included many services to and from major hubs such as London Gatwick (LGW), London Heathrow (LHR), and Manchester (MAN), with nine of the world’s ten most disrupted airports that day being in the UK.
Even so, the timing was arguably somewhat fortuitous, as, by September 8, the peak summer travel season in the UK had come to an end, with the new school year having started. Had the outage occurred just a week earlier, it would have likely affected more flights, due to September 1 being a bank holiday and one of the last days for families to return home from vacation before the start of the school year.
Ryanair Has Repeatedly Called For NATS’ CEO To Be Sacked
As was the case back in July of 2025, when air traffic control systems in the United Kingdom suffered their last major outage, NATS came under fire after the incident, with CEO Martin Rolfe, in particular, serving as the main target of the criticism. According to AJ Bell, he took responsibility for the outage, saying on Radio 4 that “when these things happen, it is disappointing and upsetting, for which I apologize.”
However, for some, an apology wasn’t enough, with Ryanair issuing three inflammatory statements within the space of two days last week, calling on the Transport Secretary to sack Rolfe. The airline called Rolfe “overpaid,” and asserted that he “cannot be trusted to report on his own failures.” Rolfe has dodged questions about a potential resignation, with the investigation into the outage set to end this week.
