Air traffic control— cyber attack?

[Stableunicorns]

DH is on a work trip abroad. Due to fly back to London this evening but his flight has been cancelled due to “air traffic control issues”. Currently rescheduled to tomorrow morning.

I look online and find references to “delays and cancellations”. But given that his flight has been completely cancelled, not just delayed, hours in advance, suggests to me that there’s a massive problem and it’s being downplayed by the authorities.

AIBU to think there’s been a cyber attack and we’re not being told the full story?

That’s quite a jump OP

NATs is saying the radar is down

Quite a big jump.
I'd assume that they know where the planes are now and know that

1. They can't get the plane to the destination on time,
2. If they can get the plane to the destination the staff will be beyond their hours so cant fly back without their rest period,
3. Cancelling some flights will help get everything back on track quicker.

It could be a cyber attack but theres lots of other possibilities so best to wait and see.

Probably cancelled because unless they can get the planes that should have left out, then they won’t be able to fit in the ones that are due to depart? So the sensible thing to do is cancel rather than keep delaying it.

malaysia? diversions/cancellations due to the volcano?

Speaking as someone in the cyber industry, of course it could be a cyber attack, it’s a reasonable assumption along with other non-malicious causes. Their systems are very well protected but of course there is always a chance.

Hope your DH gets home soon, I’m away in Singapore and due to return Friday morning. Not entirely hopeful for a smooth journey

😳😳 I havent stocked up on supplies like we were told to

If Russia could wait til payday, that would be amazing xx

My mind jumped to the same suspicion at first. I'm just waiting for a huge cyber attack (or stray experimental AI that's gone bandit) on satalites or banking systems.. It's probably not what has happened here tho.

Luckily airlines have so many fail-safes and backups, and they'd always err on the side of caution, try not to worry op.

Israel showing FAFO?

Not my first thought. Surely you'd choose a time where the impact was greater, such as school holidays or a national holiday somewhere?

There is a dude at Manchester Airport currently live streaming on YouTube of all the planes coming in

My thoughts too

Sounds like its a system glitch, no indication that its a cyber attack.

First thing I thought as well. Wouldn't surprise me at all.

A lot of airports run on an absolute knife edge in terms of slot availability. And where an incident affects other airports their options to manage the situation narrow significantly.

Even a half hour stop to flights has a massive knock on impact for the rest of the service and beyond - even worse than for trains because you can pack a hell of a lot more people than usual onto trains once they're running again and alternative land routes are more available.

For flights, it's much easier for an airport and airline to manage if they spread the impacts. Logistically it's a lot easier to manage if you cancel a flight before people have left for/arrived at the airport than if they're already through security/immigration and languishing at the airport.

And often they'll know right awy that if, eg Flight9 to Budapest had to be cancelled at 10am, then flight 10 back from Budapest will also have to be cancelled because that plane won't have made it to Budapest.

Have a look on flight radar

I thought exactly the same thing.

I’m with the group wondering if it was an international bad actor.

All the stuff I,'ve heard from those in or formerly in the ATC business is it's not a cyber attack, it's a failure of part of the IT system that handles flight plans, specifically flight plans for aircraft departing southern UK airports...

So those flights haven't departed, that has led to shortage of ramp (parking) space at places like LHR so some of the inbound flights have had to divert.

Supposedly the problem was fixed just under an hour ago but it's going to take hours for the system to recover (as in aircraft being in the right place).

If you bothered to look at BBC news, you will see that NATS are saying it is a problem with the flight processing system,

My DS works for NATS and none of their other systems are down, and he doesn’t think all airports are affected.

That’s more or less what DS told me! You put it better than me…

YABU, yes. There is a massive problem, but it’s due to the issue with the system that’s been stated. You have no cause to jump to cyber attack. Do you usually catastrophize?

Thanks for everyone’s comments.

@Vickythevan26 yes of course I’ve seen that. The point of the thread is to wonder whether we’re not being told the whole story. Israel, for example, has today announced that they regard Britain as a “hostile state”.

Also, if an outbound flight leaves but can’t get back the airline have an aircraft and a crew stuck somewhere, so not only do they have to wait until that crew can fly home they don’t have the aircraft for (say) tomorrow. EasyJet, for example, have around 20 aircraft based at Bristol airport, they cannot afford to have them stranded all around Europe

Well given that NATS have now confirmed that the problem is fixed (albeit disruption will continue for a while as planes are not in the right place), then I would believe them over something read on Internet!

A cyber attack would likely have taken the whole of NATS systems out, with absolutely no ATC, which isn’t the case.