Over 2,000 UK flight cancellations traced to millisecond software defect

The September 8 chaos stranded hundreds of thousands of passengers for hours on UK airport runways and in terminals

A preliminary report on Friday blamed a millisecond-software defect for the cancellation of over 2,000 flights in and out of the United Kingdom last week.

NATS, formerly known as National Air Traffic Services, said on Friday that the glitch on September 8 was behind the mayhem at British airports and beyond, rather than any human failings – as many had speculated at the time.

It said a software defect in the National Airspace System, which allocates codes so air traffic controllers can identify flights on radar, was behind the decision to axe the flights. The move affected hundreds of thousands of travellers.