Air Traffic Control Operator NATS Says 'Millisecond' Software Issue Caused Sept. 8 UK Travel Disruption

11:26 AM EDT, 09/18/2026 (MT Newswires) -- NATS identified a software issue that happened "in the space of a millisecond" as the reason for the Sept. 8 technical incident, which resulted in widespread travel disruption across the country's airports. In a preliminary report published Friday, the UK air traffic control service provider said its analysis showed that "a legacy and previously unknown software defect" caused the flight data within the National Airspace System to be corrupted. The report also ruled out the involvement of a malicious actor or cyber related activity as causes. More than 2,000 flights were delayed, canceled or diverted as a result of the incident. NATS noted that the backlog of passenger disruption took more than two days to be cleared. "A mitigation plan is currently in place while the permanent fix of the underlying software, which has already been developed and delivered by our supplier, is tested, safety assured and deployed," NATS said.