‘Incorrect’ data cause of UK air traffic chaos

London: The UK's air traffic control chief has said that "incorrect" flight data was the cause of the massive disruption that affected thousands of passengers stuck in planes and at airports as hundreds of flights to and from the country were cancelled, with knock-on effects continuing on Wednesday.

Martin Rolfe, the chief executive of National Air Traffic Services (NATS) which had faced the “technical issue” that triggered the chaos on Monday, said an initial investigation had found the failure was caused by flight data which its system could not interpret.

He also reiterated the government's previous statement that it was not caused by a cyber-attack. “Initial investigations into the problem show it relates to some of the flight data we received,” said Rolfe.