Nats fallen over again

[Mojo]

Seems like part of the UK ATC system has fallen over again, with some airports having no departures for a while but with operations now resumed and heavily limited. Flightradar shows planes at Heathrow still at the gate 4 hours after they should have departed, plus many planes on the ground still waiting for gates over 2 hours after landing.

Nats have issued a statement saying they are aware of what the issue is, and are still working to fix it.

Technical issue causing some disruption to flight departures - NATS

NATS provides safe and efficient air traffic services and innovative solutions to UK and international airports, airlines and governments.

www.nats.aero

We have identified that the issue was in our flight processing system. Our engineers are on site and working urgently to resume normal operations as quickly as possible. We recognise the ongoing disruption to travel, for which we sincerely apologise. Flights are still departing and airspace is open, but recovery will take some time. We will provide further updates as soon as possible.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Seems like part of the UK ATC system has fallen over again, with some airports having no departures for a while but with operations now resumed and heavily limited. Flightradar shows planes at Heathrow still at the gate 4 hours after they should have departed, plus many planes on the ground still waiting for gates over 2 hours after landing.

The obvious possibility here is that a certain vodka drinking nation might have been busy...

 

[rmHawk765]

The obvious possibility here is that a certain vodka drinking nation might have been busy...

You could be a little less discriminatory of the actual people of that country... as here, they don't exactly choose what their government gets up to.

Also, if this was a cyberattack it would've been all over the news and that certain nation would be blamed faster than anyone can make a reasonable assumption of what/who executed it.

 

[speedy1]

Most won't believe the many, many attacks on infrastructure were Russia unless there is a verified signed document by Putin saying "I did it - Yours, Putin".

edit: Crazy how many people refuse to accept we're in a hybrid war with Russia and have been for a long time. Yes I know there are other causes for things

 

[Bletchleyite]

You could be a little less discriminatory of the actual people of that country... as here, they don't exactly choose what their government gets up to.

To be honest I think that is so obvious that it would be a waste of wear on my keyboard to state it explicitly

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Today at 16:19 ==

Most won't believe the many, many attacks on infrastructure were Russia unless there is a verified signed document by Putin saying "I did it - Yours, Putin".

edit: Crazy how many people refuse to accept we're in a hybrid war with Russia and have been for a long time. Yes I know there are other causes for things

Well, quite. We clearly are, and this sort of thing has a very high chance of being some sort of cyberattack.

 

[rf_ioliver]

We clearly are, and this sort of thing has a very high chance of being some sort of cyberattack.

Extremely unlikely given how the NATS system is architected.

The last major failure was due to a route parsing error: https://jameshaydon.github.io/nats-fail/ so much more likely to be some software edge case or hardware failure than anything else.

 

[AntoniC]

The obvious possibility here is that a certain vodka drinking nation might have been busy...

Poland ?

 

[Howardh]

Just watched one flight land at Manchester. As a layman I ask two questions - where's the backup?

 

[mrmartin]

NATS sayign its back up but very little moving out. Will be an absolute nightmare getting this back, lots of eg LHR redirected to Stansted

 

[Sun Chariot]

Just watched one flight land at Manchester. As a layman I ask two questions - where's the backup?

As a former employee of the org, a root cause might be data rather than the software or its hardware (and not yet known if it is on-prem or SaaS / IaaS).

The 2024 August Bank Holiday outage was due to spurious data from another Western European nation. The system routine correctly identified and failed the data.
The human interaction - awareness and corrective actions - was, I understand, why the tech recovery took the time it did.

 

[ox_chap]

Can the railway help out at least for the internal flights. Extra late train by Avanti or LNER? Sweep up those hoping to travel later today within the UK?

 

[gabrielhj07]

Eurocontrol:

All London airports arrivals only at reduced rate. Gatwick not accepting arrivals 1500-1800, Heathrow 1400-1600.

“Moderate to high” delays until 2000 throughout London.

 

[Mojo]

Looks like it’s now been 2 hours since the last departure from Heathrow. A Murican Airlines flight that was stood at the end of the runway for several hours has just taxied along the runway and seems to be heading back toward the terminal.

There’s a BA plane that’s been sat on the taxiway just off T5A for approaching 4 hours now. You’d be furious.

 

[Starmill]

Can the railway help out at least for the internal flights. Extra late train by Avanti or LNER? Sweep up those hoping to travel later today within the UK?

There’s plenty of space on the usual late trains after 1930 from London to Manchester and Newcastle. There's also free space on the usual 1930 London to Glasgow and 1930 / 2003 London to Edinburgh. A Lumo does run slightly later. Should the airlines have wished to rebook to these services there would be no problem accommodating the numbers, but they would be likely to be paying for it so will seek to get everyone on their own services first.

 

[Mojo]

Looks like the first departure has just gone up, the 1320 to Glasgow.

 

[AndrewE]

As a former employee of the org, a root cause might be data rather than the software or its hardware (and not yet known if it is on-prem or SaaS / IaaS).

The 2024 August Bank Holiday outage was due to spurious data from another Western European nation. The system routine correctly identified and failed the data.
The human interaction - awareness and corrective actions - was, I understand, why the tech recovery took the time it did.

would it be possible for a cunning adversary to infiltrate some remote/lower security airport and "accidentally on purpose" enter a dud code which it was known would stuff the systems at bigger airports downstream? (Serbia and Slovakia come to mind, to name but two...)

 

[Towers]

Also, if this was a cyberattack it would've been all over the news and that certain nation would be blamed faster than anyone can make a reasonable assumption of what/who executed it.

I very much doubt it would have been! It isn’t a good look for a nation to have to admit that its entire capacity for commercial aviation is susceptible to cyber attack from hostile nations.

 

[rmHawk765]

I very much doubt it would have been! It isn’t a good look for a nation to have to admit that its entire capacity for commercial aviation is susceptible to cyber attack from hostile nations.

I don't really think the slop newspapers care about whether it's a good look for the nation or not, they just want the money in.

 

[Towers]

I don't really think the slop newspapers care about whether it's a good look for the nation or not, they just want the money in.

However they know only what they’re told unless somebody leaks, which tends to happen after the event. Russia et al will seldom admit to playing silly games, even though they do so frequently - see their regular needless incursions into or very close to UK airspace or waters as an example. Everybody knows why they do it, it’s mere playground provocation, but if pushed for an explanation they’ll make something up.

 

[AndrewE]

I very much doubt it would have been! It isn’t a good look for a nation to have to admit that its entire capacity for commercial aviation is susceptible to cyber attack from hostile nations.

"If God had meant us to fly He would never have given us the railways!"

 

[Towers]

"If God had meant us to fly He would never have given us the railways!"

 

[D1537]

The obvious possibility here is that a certain vodka drinking nation might have been busy...

Given today's news, if it was a cyberattack there's a far more likely culprit.

 

[Howardh]

What stands out a mile is just how badly airlines treat the passengers if they are stuck in the tarmac - while there are laws and regulations if you are stuck at the airport(ie vouchers, accommodation) there's nothing it seems if you are stuck on an aircraft, and the staff won't even bring water to you which is diabolical. Yes, I understand if they start an early trolly service the flight could suddenly get the go-ahead; and also they could run out mid-flight, but come on, where's the common sense?? After one hour stranded on the tarmac, you should be given free food and drink - and the airlines claim it back of NATS or whomever caused the issue.

https://news.sky.com/story/uk-airports-latest-air-traffic-control-issue-causing-disruption-to-flight-departures-13579347

Police called to Ryanair flight as tensions boil over​

The frustration over delays and wait times has escalated massively on one Ryanair flight stranded at Gatwick.
A passenger tells Sky News Ryanair staff weren't handing out water, even though the flight has been on the tarmac since 1.30pm.
He says there was "tension" onboard and some passengers threatened to walk off the plane, which eventually led staff to call the police.
The officers are now arranging for a water delivery while passengers are waiting to disembark - at the moment there are no buses available to take passengers to the terminal.

 

[Sun Chariot]

"If God had meant us to fly He would never have given us the railways!"

Take a bow!
I have yet to find any photo or cine of The Cheltenham Flyer living up to its moniker.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Today at 19:12 ==

would it be possible for a cunning adversary to infiltrate some remote/lower security airport and "accidentally on purpose" enter a dud code which it was known would stuff the systems at bigger airports downstream? (Serbia and Slovakia come to mind, to name but two...)

In short, no (thankfully)

 

[Tetchytyke]

Given today's news, if it was a cyberattack there's a far more likely culprit.

That nation is also primarily filled with Russians, just Russians who happily discovered that they had a certain heritage in 2022 and that it gave them an exit pass…

I don’t really think it was a cyberattack though. Just more poor technology.

 

[Starmill]

What stands out a mile is just how badly airlines treat the passengers if they are stuck in the tarmac - while there are laws and regulations if you are stuck at the airport(ie vouchers, accommodation) there's nothing it seems if you are stuck on an aircraft, and the staff won't even bring water to you which is diabolical. Yes, I understand if they start an early trolly service the flight could suddenly get the go-ahead; and also they could run out mid-flight, but come on, where's the common sense?? After one hour stranded on the tarmac, you should be given free food and drink - and the airlines claim it back of NATS or whomever caused the issue.

https://news.sky.com/story/uk-airports-latest-air-traffic-control-issue-causing-disruption-to-flight-departures-13579347

There is still a Right to Care in place. If there's enough stock to give out.

 

[sh24]

The railway is often very bad at providing information. However it took Virgin 5 hours to acknowledge the issues on their website! Flights that have been cancelled aren't updating in real time and return flights are still showing as operating (and available for purchase!) even when the outbound plane has been towed and dumped into the cargo area at Heathrow.

 

[Sun Chariot]

The railway is often very bad at providing information. However it took Virgin 5 hours to acknowledge the issues on their website! Flights that have been cancelled aren't updating in real time and return flights are still showing as operating (and available for purchase!) even when the outbound plane has been towed and dumped into the cargo area at Heathrow.

That latency is more likely the timings and frequencies of data between the airports, airlines and third-party sellers.

They might be taking a stance of leaving information as-is, until they know exactly when each flight will get its revised flight plan.

 

[gabrielhj07]

The situation as of 45 minutes ago:

Gatwick not accepting arrivals until 2100
Heathrow until 0300
Stansted until 2200