UK Air Traffic Control Outage Diverts Dozens of Flights Across Europe

A technical problem at the UK's air traffic control on Tuesday caused significant disruption. Over 1,000 flights were cancelled and 70 diverted at London Heathrow alone.

The issue began shortly after 1 p.m. local time and took more than six hours to resolve. Around a quarter of the diverted Heathrow flights were sent to airports in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland.

The first diversion was a Finnair flight from Helsinki, redirected to London Stansted. Several subsequent diversions went to other UK airports, including Manchester and London Gatwick.

The first flight diverted to another country was a Singapore Airlines Airbus A380 bound for Heathrow, which was sent to Paris Charles de Gaulle. In total, 17 flights were diverted to German, Swiss, or Austrian airports, including two Emirates A380s that landed in Düsseldorf and Munich. Frankfurt received six diverted flights, Munich five, Vienna two, and Düsseldorf, Cologne/Bonn, Stuttgart, and Zurich each received one.