Broken Traffic Control Tower Causes Transatlantic Delays
Delays at Heathrow and Gatwick airports caused several transatlantic flights to be grounded or stranded yesterday, when an air traffic control station at Prestwick airport went offline. The control hub went down at 8AM after a breakdown, which caused many flights leaving the UK earlier this morning to be affected.
The breakdown caused delays nationwide until engineers for Nats, the organization responsible for the UK’s air traffic management, were able to get the control station fixed and operating once again. Now, however, the airports will working furiously to clear the backup of flights leaving the country.
Although outgoing flights were halted, it has been reported that all incoming flights arriving in the UK were able to be landed safely using manual methods. Once the problem was fixed, restrictions for flights leaving to cross the north Atlantic airspace were allowed to be lifted and flight schedules resumed.
According to Nats, Heathrow in London, was by far the worse affected due to the delays. Especially because the airport services so many flights to the U.S., which were held up for more than two hours. At Gatwick, which was also affected heavily, transatlantic flights were also held up for a period of time, which includes Virigin Atlantic airline flights. Although the delays were annoying, and caused many passengers to have to wait extended periods of time to leave, no serious problems arose from the tower being out of commission. All incoming flights were landed without incident.
Gatiwck and Heathrow were the only airports affected in the UK due to the traffic hub being taken offline, no other major airports in the country experienced delays. Gatwick and Heathrow serve most of the transatlantic flights departing from the UK.