NOW: Flights Grounded Across Britain After Major Failure in Air Traffic Control
Planes are grounded across the UK.
The United Kingdom is experiencing major airport disruptions as flights are grounded nationwide following a technical failure in air traffic control.
Huge disruption at multiple UK airports including Heathrow and Gatwick as flights blocked from taking off due to air traffic control error https://t.co/EaeMmO52Dd
— LBC (@LBC) September 8, 2026
The Telegraph reported:
“All flights into London Heathrow and Gatwick have been halted until at least 7pm, with airports including London City, Manchester, Stansted, East Midlands, Birmingham, Belfast City, Aberdeen, Glasgow and Southampton also experiencing disruption.
The Telegraph understands that equipment at the headquarters of Nats, the air traffic control company, at Swanwick, near Southampton, has failed. Controllers based at the HQ are responsible for safely guiding flights across all UK airspace.”
UPDATE ATC Equipment /Weather (Turbulence)/Airspace Management issue is halting departures from London Heathrow and Gatwick Airports. Updates: https://t.co/3T3oPXVHEr
— AIRLIVE (@airlivenet) September 8, 2026
“The ‘data processing’ failure happened just after 1pm, multiple sources said.
Nats acknowledged a “technical issue” had occurred but gave no details of what had broken or why it had happened.”
BREAKING: Technical issues are causing disruption to flight departures in the UK, according to National Air Traffic Services.
Sky’s @BarnabyPap reports.
Latest: https://t.co/bY50gsfH4q
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— Sky News (@SkyNews) September 8, 2026
GB News reported:
“A spokesman for the National Air Traffic Services (Nats) said: ‘We are investigating a technical issue which is causing some disruption to flight departures’.
‘Our engineers are on site and we will provide an update as soon as we can. We apologize for the delay this will cause to journeys, passengers should check with their airline on the status of their flight’.
They added: ‘Flights are still departing and airspace is open, but recovery will take some time. We will provide further updates as soon as possible’”
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