The Ministry of Defence has denied that a military aircraft was responsible for the National Air Traffic Services (NATS) system failure that disrupted flights at Bristol Airport for several days from 8 September, contradicting reports that named a military flight plan as the trigger.
A Financial Times report published on Friday said four sources familiar with the incident had blamed a flight plan submitted by a British military aircraft for introducing faulty data that caused the NATS system to fail. The BBC reported early on Saturday that an MoD spokesperson had rejected this. "We do not believe there's any indication of an error on the part of the military," the spokesperson said. "Because it's subject to a live NATS investigation, which is expected to conclude next week, it would be inappropriate for us to comment any further while that investigation is ongoing."
A NATS spokesperson told the BBC the organisation was "continuing to investigate the underlying cause" and that it would be "wrong to speculate while that work continues." The Independent reported the same denial, quoting NATS as saying a full technical investigation would follow.
The outage, which began on Tuesday 8 September, forced NATS to restrict the flow of flight data for several hours and led to more than 2,000 cancellations across the UK network within three days, including delays and cancellations for Bristol Airport passengers that took days to clear. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has told MPs she believes the disruption was avoidable and has ordered a separate, independent probe by the Civil