Software glitch lasting ONE MILLISECOND wiped out 2,000 flights and stranded 330,000 Britons, NATS report finds

From the Newshound archive · first published 19 September 2026.

A preliminary NATS report has confirmed that a software defect lasting just a millisecond on September 8 caused the cancellation of more than 2,000 flights and left over 330,000 passengers stranded across UK airports. The fault struck the system that automatically assigns identification codes to aircraft, forcing controllers to co-ordinate aircraft handovers manually, sending workloads soaring. NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe confirmed the chaos was not linked to a previous 2023 outage or a July radar failure, and that no operator error was to blame. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander called the disruption 'completely unacceptable' but warned passengers are unlikely to receive compensation.

Rolfe said the software fault occurred 'in the space of a millisecond', knocking out live flight data at London Area Control.

Airlines have been blamed for leaving passengers in the dark — one traveller received her only email update an hour after her scheduled departure time.

The disruption continued into the following day, with more than 100 airline representatives summoned to a crisis meeting as airports struggled to clear the backlog.