Air traffic control— cyber attack?

Thanks everyone for the interesting explanations of how this works! Hope everyone gets home safe and soon.

Morning,

I'd be interested to see what really went on at Liverpool, not the TVs version of it, but in any event the entire skies of the UK weren't brought to a standstill..(see my comments about overflights and inbounds).

I suspect it may become clearer when we start hearing an explanation from NATS, but I think it's fair to point out ATC systems worldwide work along the lines of the UK one, with very large swaths of medium/high level controlled airspace being run out of one centre.

What happens is that if a flight plan shows conflicting information, the system shuts down the skies because there is a flight which lacks predictability. That is not the system 'failing '' that is the system operating correctly and prioritising safety over convenience.Moreover it isnt really NATS who are at fault here.

That was exactly my thought

I wasn't suggesting it should run compartmentalised all the time. As a person who used to design systems it puzzles me why a data problem in a geographic area is allowed to bring the entire skies of the UK, except it seems Liverpool, to a standstil and be unable to fence off the rogue geographic area.

Once upon a time Medium/high level ATC actually was slightly more compartmentalised than it is now, back in the days when skies were less busy and aircraft were slower, but that doesn't work well anymore, but I'll come back to that.

I'm not sure what point the TV report was trying to make but Liverpool isn't special, all airports have their own ATC system at the (literally) local level to handle the controlling of aircraft on the ground and (usually) within a few thousand feet/handful of miles of the airport, where high speeds aren't involved and distances don't get covered quickly...those controllers manage the local box of air..

Problem is go beyond the local area and as aircraft get higher up speeds usually increase, ground get covered more quickly and a more centralised system makes more sense with controllers looking after large sectors of airspace, not little local boxes.

Crossing England at high level a pilot might only need to switch controllers and radio frequencies half a dozen times...which reduces everyone's workload, improves safety, certainly helps with coordination.

It also helps if everyone on the ground side is in the same building...even going way back ,1960s, England and Wales only used to have two main ATC centres, London and Preston, but it's been London alone for a long time (that's now physically at Swanwick), Scotland has it's own centre for medium/high level traffic.

However whats being missed in some of the commentary about yesterday is that the problem wasn't one of radars not working or controllers not having comms, it was a problem that the flight planning system somehow wasn't accepting flight plans for flights originating out of some of the southern airports...and flight plan handling systems by their nature can't be too compartmented, data has to be shared across ATC centres and airports.

What is also maybe important to note is that London ATC was still happily handling those flights they did have flight plans for e.g. overflights of England and Wales, and those flights inbound to southern UK airports (until parking space ran out.).

Got an early start tomorrow to make sure himself gets on the rebooked plane, I really need a few days home alone!

So Northwest Tonight said Liverpool continued to fly the whole time because it has is own ATC system.

Which begs the question why the national system is not compartmentalised so that one rogue bit of data doesn't bring the entire country's airports except Liverpool to a standstill.

Our water went off yesterday when I was doing my teeth. First thought - Russian cyber attack! . Turns out it was the council doing some work along the road, so I think we are all a bit o high alert 😊

Waste tanks full, as @OnlyUsername mentioned.

Might just, just, be a possibility at the end of a very extended Long Haul flight, but wouldn't expect it pre-departure...

Where I was in the event of a long ground delay with no aircraft movement likely it was normal to have seat belts off, facilities available.

DH was allowed to use the toilet. They switched off the seatbelt signs so people could walk around. Why would you not be unless the tank was full?

What one reason @notimagain ?

I think it could be...

If I was a hostile nation (I'm not, by the way) I would infiltrate various systems e.g. NHS, banks, power providers etc. individually over some months (this has already happened) then;

1. see how they manage the problem,
2. create a 'back door' in the system so I have access in the future,
3. insert malicious code which I could activate at a time I wanted,
4. do this over a period of time and then execute one massive, concurrent attack.

This would make an interesting book/film. I might make a start on it myself, after I have watched my recording of 'The Great British Sewing Bee'.

It's not a cyber attack.The current air traffic management system is widely known to ve not fit for purpose. NATs have been working on implementing a new system ITec for many years.

Be interested to know what reason they were given for the denial of access to the toilets whilst on the ground during an extended delay..sounds a bit odd/more than a bit unusual.

ETA: was this after landing -.in which case in hindsight I can maybe think of maybe one reason.

Even longer I think. Sounds a nightmare, imagine having small children on there! We were stuck for a couple of hours last year on the tarmac and that was enough (bizarrely they had to recount the cases and then we all had to get off and identify our cases!) We only flew back Sunday so I am thankful to have missed it!

If it was/is a cyber attack then that's not good.

If it wasn't then it makes you wonder how the system would hang together if there was a cyber attack given it seems somewhat flaky under normal operation anyway.

I've seen one person report they were on the tarmac for four hours and couldn't use the toilet. How stressful. How to make a bad situation worse for people. Glad I'm safe at home. Completely worries me going away these days.

The controllers obviously don't but pretty much everyone else does. Last time the system went down it took an engineer 3 hours to get from home to the office. 3 hrs! This is critical infrastructure ffs and we are waiting for some bloke to get out of bed, scratch his balls, and saunter into work. NATS are a joke.

They'll be trying all the time though, and perhaps it's just this time that they've hit lucky.

I used to work for a government department and most people simply would'nt believe the amount of hacking attempts and denial of service attacks are made to key systems - almost aways unsuccessful due to the various measures in place.

And they won't be advertising if and how any succeeded.

The chief exec will probably go, yes. But saying everyone works from home isn't true either.

It is demonstrably true. The boss will be eased out soon for someone who can sort the shit show organisation out.

Yeah, that's not really true.

Ok
ive just spoken to my son who is ATC at Swanwick
he was working yesterday afternoon
says it was fixed yesterday evening but there is a flight backlog
Apparently, data for some flights was coming in incorrectly and they couldn’t fix it

in time

Nah, NATS are just incompetent and mostly work at home so takes them forever to respond to issues. Just like the last time a few years ago.