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NATS Identifies Millisecond Software Defect Behind Major UK Air Traffic Control Disruption

Mon, Sep 21, 2026

NATS Identifies Millisecond Software Defect Behind Major UK Air Traffic Control Disruption

NATS has identified a software defect inside the UK National Airspace System as the cause of the September 8 air traffic control disruption that forced restrictions across the country. In its preliminary investigation, NATS said the fault occurred while the system was processing a manual aircraft-code request and simultaneously received a higher-priority message.

According to NATS, the interruption caused the original request to resume incorrectly, corrupting its output and affecting subsequent flight-data updates. The entire triggering sequence happened within a millisecond. With controllers receiving reduced information, NATS restricted traffic while the system was restarted and flight data reloaded. Restrictions remained in place for approximately six hours.

NATS says the problem was unrelated to its August 2023 outage and has identified the affected code, with mitigation already implemented while a permanent fix undergoes safety testing. For NVOII readers operating through UK airspace, the investigation demonstrates how a highly localized software failure can quickly affect routing, slots, fuel planning and business aviation operations across an entire national airspace system.

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