The Ministry of Defence has been forced to deny reports that data entered by a military jet was behind the air traffic control system failure that hit UK airports this week.
UK airports were thrown into chaos this week by an apparent technical issue at National Air Traffic Services (Nats), which caused more than 2,000 flights arriving or departing the UK to be cancelled following the fault on Tuesday.
The Financial Times reported on Friday that it had been told by four sources that a flight plan submitted by a military aircraft triggered events that led to the outage.
It claimed the entry caused a glitch within the wider air traffic control system that took hours to restart.
An MOD spokesperson said: “We do not believe there’s any indication of an error on the part of the military.
“Because it’s subject to a live Nats investigation, which is expected to conclude next week, it would be inappropriate for us to comment any further while that investigation is ongoing.”
A Nats spokesperson said: “We are continuing to investigate the underlying cause.
“It would be wrong to speculate while that work continues, and a full technical investigation will follow.”
open image in galleryThe disruption has prompted calls for Martin Rolfe, chief executive of Nats, to resign.
Mr Rolfe apologised for the incident, which he said he took “full responsibility” for.
Michael O’Leary, the boss of budget airline Ryanair, called Mr Rolfe’s position “untenable” earlier this week.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told MPs on Wednesday afternoon that she did not believe the air traffic control issue was “unavoidable”.
A Wizz Air spokesperson said the airline is “extremely disappointed” that a Nats technical failure caused the widespread disruption, adding: “Nats is simply not fit for purpose in its current form.”
Some 2,145 flights were affected over the Tuesday and Wednesday, according to aviation analytics company Cirium.
Despite this, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has said passengers are “unlikely to be entitled to compensation for delays or cancellations that were directly caused by the incident”.
A CAA spokesperson said: “We consider that disruption caused by the Nats outage is likely to be considered the result of ‘extraordinary circumstances’ under passenger rights rules.
“This means that although passengers should be looked after by airlines, they are unlikely to be entitled to compensation for delays or cancellations that were directly caused by the incident.”
Ms Alexander said she had asked the CAA to conduct an independent review into the incident, which is due to report to her within six months.
In August 2023, more than 700,000 passengers suffered disruption when flights were grounded at UK airports when Nats suffered a technical glitch while processing a flight plan.