Revealed: Aging IT system 'is to blame' for collapse of air traffic control as passengers may have been ordered to sleep on airport floors when controller put too many DOTS in plane request of theft, according to an expert

Revealed: The aging computer system 'is to blame' for the collapse of air traffic control, as passengers may have been ordered to sleep on airport floors when the controller put too many DOTS in a plane request flight, according to an expert. The National Air Traffic Services system has been collapsed into a piece of incorrect data

By Tom Pyman

day: 22:46 BST, 30 August 2023

An aging computer system was today blamed for the collapse of air traffic control, as an expert has claimed chaos may have erupted because a controller put too many points in a flight plan request.

The widespread disruption that began on Monday were allegedly caused by a single malicious flight plan and continue to affect dozens of services two days later.

< p class="mol-para-with-font">Controllers need information from base on each flight to populate their display, such as flight number, aircraft type, destination and route.

If this information are not spaced and formatted in a certain way, and the computer does not recognize the data, it can cause a system crash - a failure this morning described as 'staggering' by former British Airways boss Willie . Walsh.

Many affected travelers are being asked to wait up to 10 days for their return flight, with some forced to sleep on the floors of the airport or to take long routes by plane. land after their flights were cancelled.

Airlines have come under fire for not booking hotel rooms for many people who have been delayed overnight.

Michele Robson, who has worked in air traffic control for over 20 years, told the Sky News Daily podcast: 'When there have been failures in the past, this is normally something to do with bad information that was entered in the wrong format.