Chaos at British airports as thousands of passengers are left ‘stuck on the tarmac’ after ‘radar issues’ ground flights

Chaos has erupted at airports across Britain as thousands of passengers are stuck on the ground due to ‘radar issues’. 

Departures from airports including the UK’s largest – London Heathrow – are on hold due to a major Air Traffic Control (ATC) failure. 

Birmingham, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Stansted, Manchester, Gatwick, and Luton are among those affected. 

Technical issues appear to have closed off London’s airspace, leaving many flights circling or displaced. 

Gatwick Airport confirmed the technical issue means no departures are set to take place while the situation is being resolved. 

One person on X reported a Heathrow bound flight is currently flying around Ben Nevis while unable to land safely. 

Meanwhile, passenger Jane Ainsworth told the Daily Mail her flight from Kos back to Birmingham has been forced to land in Brussels. 

Another frustrated flyer reported ‘going nowhere’ as they sat inside an airplane on the runway for more than 40 minutes. 

‘Going nowhere as no departures from @HeathrowAirport for the last 40 minutes. Apparently ‘the radar isn’t working’. @British_Airways crew being fab.’ 

A frustrated passenger reported ‘going nowhere’ as they sat inside an airplane on the runway for the past 40 minutes

One person on X reported a Heathrow bound flight is currently circling Ben Nevis while unable to land safely

Furious passengers have reported being scared to miss events they were meant to be travelling to 

Many flights have been diverted due to the widespread issue 

A statement from NTAS, the UK’s biggest air traffic control firm, said: ‘As a result of a technical issue at NATS Swanwick air traffic control centre, we are limiting the number of aircraft flying in the London control area in order to ensure safety, which is always our first priority.

‘We apologise for any delays this may cause. Our engineers are working hard to resolve the problem as quickly as possible and we are working closely with airlines to help minimise disruption. At this stage we cannot say how long it will be before operations are back to normal.

‘Please check with your airline on the status of your flight.’ 

Gatwick Airport said the technical issue meant there are currently no departures while the situation is being resolved.

‘A technical issue impacting Nats is affecting all outbound flights across the UK,’ the airport said on X.

‘There are currently no departures from London Gatwick while the situation is being resolved.

‘We are working with Nats to resume flights as quickly as possible. Inbound flights are still landing at the airport.

‘Passengers should check the status of their flights with their airline.’

Last year, a bank holiday air traffic control meltdown that left more than 700,000 passengers stranded was made worse because a work-from-home engineer’s password wouldn’t work.

Chaos erupted at airports across the UK last August when a flight-plan glitch caused the National Air Traffic Services (NATS) computer system to collapse.

Thousands of passengers have been left stuck on the ground at airports across Britain due to ‘radar issues’

With the system down, flights could not take off or land at any airport, causing hellish delays that lasted for days and cost airlines £100 million in compensation.

A Civil Aviation Authority inquiry into the incident found that IT support engineers were allowed to work from home on one of the busiest days of the year.

The engineer assigned to fix the problem struggled to login remotely because the system had crashed, so it would not accept his password.

It took an hour and a half for them to get into their office, where they performed a ‘full system re-start’ – which did not resolve the problem.

While thousands of holidaymakers were stuck at airports or on the tarmac, advice was sought from an off-site senior engineer, who also did not understand why the system had failed so dramatically.