Military aircraft caused UK air traffic failure that forced thousands of flights to be grounded: Report - Anadolu Ajansı

An air traffic control failure that led to the cancellation of thousands of flights in the UK was caused by a military aircraft entering "spurious" flight data, according to a Friday media report.

Four people briefed about Tuesday’s incident said a flight plan submitted by a UK military aircraft triggered events that led to the shutdown of the UK's skies for several hours, the Financial Times reported.

Sources said the military aircraft's entry prompted a meltdown in the wider air traffic control system that took hours and several attempts to restart.

The issue, which was announced as a technical failure by the UK’s National Air Traffic Services (NATS), sparked a wide range of criticism from carriers.

Earlier, NATS head Martin Rolfe apologized to passengers after the outage caused widespread disruption on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The Civil Aviation Authority will carry out an independent investigation, reporting back in six months, but next week’s report from NATS is seen as crucial for Rolfe, according to the Financial Times.

"It would be wrong to fire anyone from a job when you don’t know what has happened," said one person with knowledge of the process.