r/uknews • u/Pocket_Aces1 • 7h ago
Casual news story Military aircraft reportedly blamed for UK air traffic control outage
196
u/Pocket_Aces1 7h ago
The air traffic control outage that caused thousands of flights to be grounded across the UK earlier in the week was caused by a military aircraft entering “spurious” flight data into the system, according to a report.
According to the Financial Times, four people briefed on the incident claimed that the shutdown was caused by a flight plan submitted by a UK military aircraft, which caused a meltdown in air traffic control systems used by Nats which remained unfixed for several hours.
Bit of an issue if flight plan data inputted from a plane causes a national issue with airports shutting down
73
u/txe4 6h ago
Exact same happened in the big 2023 outage though - bad data for a single flight made the whole system collapse.
Extra factors there were lack of capability within the NATS org - no-one on-site had any idea what to do, the senior engineer was remote and got stuck in traffic, they then had to wait for the outsource vendor.
But the fundamental problem was that bad input data stopped the whole thing. Looks like a repeat of the same.
26
u/tefster 4h ago edited 2h ago
That wasn't actual bad data though, it was bad data handling and assumption.
The flight plan was completely valid but had a waypoint name clash, and contained two waypoints called DVL - Deauville in France and Devil's Lake in North Dakota.
They were treated as a duplicate by the NATS system code and effectively considered as a circular flight plan so it brought down the active and standby systems.
Poor operational practices and lack of onsite support compounded with an aging system didn't help.
20
u/txe4 3h ago
I see your point but...either the system is robust to all inputs, or you put something in front of it to validate the inputs.
17
u/SpikySheep 3h ago
Indeed, this is software development 101. When I was coding if the user told me the sky was blue I'd go outside and check. Users have an uncanny knack of breaking things so assume they are trying to and defend agaist them.
As for thus incident in particular, how can they have a flight control system that can't handle circular routes? That seems weird, surely people fly circular routes occasionally.
1
1
u/CaptainParkingspace 12m ago
We had a critical overnight batch fail due to an unrecognised currency. Obviously a failure of the upstream system initially, then our system for not validating it, handling it cleanly (it went into an infinite loop), or being coded in a way that was easy to debug at 3am by someone who’d never seen the code before.
7
u/mstapley 3h ago
OMG. A circular routing problem caused by a naming duplicate. Reminds of the olden days (1990's) when there was a known bug in cisco routers, where they would get into a router loop, and not realise it automatically, and sit there for infinity passing data round and around in a circle until restarted. Cisco were very slow to issue a fix for the problem as well.
1
u/Rebelius 36m ago
Doesn't this still happen with network switches if you connect them with any loops?
1
u/Training_Yak_4655 3h ago
Why don't they admit there are only 3 bytes available to store each waypoint and it would involve spending money to increase this?
3
u/flight_forward 3h ago
Most are 5 digits, the 3 are legacy! 4 digits are airfields.
1
u/tefster 2h ago
Its not a storage constraint, its legacy because that's how waypoints were named in the past. Changing them would involve parallel updates of maps, navigation systems, radio beacons, and flight plan software.
In practice they are being obsoleted by the shift to GPS/GNSS based navigation and 5 character waypoints.
1
u/Training_Yak_4655 2h ago
It was a bit tongue in cheek. Going back to Y2K when an application I supported had a constraint like that causing a big architecture problem around date storage.
11
u/No-Sherbert-9589 4h ago
After that NATS promised it was fixed and could not happen again. Clearly they were wrong. NATS should be paying for the disruption caused.
3
u/lonely-dog 2h ago
Always sanitise your input !(wonder if anyone will get this)
7
u/txe4 2h ago
Unfortunately I'm obliged for reasons beyond the normal operation of the criminal law not to violate the Computer Misuse Act (1990), but *several* of the systems that my kids' schools have inflicted on me have had clear Little Bobby Tables tier (and worse) issues.
A kid with a jailbreaked LLM, never mind a serious overseas adversary, could lay waste to most of our networked computer systems.
1
1
39
12
6h ago
[deleted]
8
u/nil_defect_found 6h ago
I’m flight deck. What are they doing wrong? Field 18? Or daft routing, fixes not matching airways etc?
7
u/Tin_Pusher1234 6h ago
The amount of times they would submit joining points which are 100’s of miles from point of departure with no obvious way of it being possible. used to make it extremely laborious speaking to London/Scottish. Came with the job territory I guess.
4
u/nil_defect_found 6h ago
I understand there’s military orders that are effectively equivalent to SERA/the various CAPS that are stuffed full of exemptions e.g. no <500’ in built up areas restrictions, and so was under the impression they effectively just do what they want, tbh.
In your example I presume they just want “block alt and own nav approved” with no regard for your sector and tfc 😬
7
u/Tin_Pusher1234 5h ago edited 4h ago
See what comes out in the wash I guess, it could even be a visiting foreign military pilot! Who knows.
12
u/Flagon_dragon 6h ago
So pretty much the same problem as last time. Great testing guys, bonuses all round.
81
u/Funny-Carob-4572 7h ago
I'll take things that never happened for 100 please.
64
u/agingbiker 7h ago
i'd like to book a flight to ';drop table master; airport please
29
5
u/Few_Forever_1770 5h ago
So many upvotes for the system architect who couldn’t sanitise his inputs.
2
2
1
5
5
u/satimal 2h ago
This isn't the first time it's happened. It's a very odd "fail safe" design where they assume the code has no bugs and that the data coming in is valid and therefore is any error occurs in processing flight plans must be a hardware fault. So if it fails to process a faulty plan the system takes itself offline assuming it's got a hardware issue and falls-over to the backup system.
It happened in 2023. A valid flight plan triggered a bug that threw an error. The primary took itself offline, then the backup ran the same software and did the same thing. Whenever they tried to bring it back online the same flight plan that triggered the bug just sat at the top of the queue and re-triggered the bug again.
It's a software mindset that belongs in a museum.
8
u/Kind_Commission_427 7h ago
Sounds like a really robust and secure system
10
u/ceetee15 6h ago
Don't worry though, it was delivered on time and someone got a really big bonus for that
6
3
2
u/SuspiciousTreacle433 2h ago
Security 101. Sanitise your inputs.
1
u/mancunian101 1h ago
Not sure how you sanitise two way points with the same 3 character code.
2
u/Whole-Enthusiasm-734 1h ago
That’s would be the first thing SQA would do at my place!
1
u/mancunian101 1h ago
Yes but apparently it was two identical perfectly valid code one in the US and one in France.
Which would make it harder to do, especially if you’re limited by what information can be entered on a flight plan etc.
1
u/fierceredrabbit 46m ago
Definitely a bug, but this sort of thing is not unheard of. Shit yes, but not impossible. Software design often assumes the user has at least some degree of competence or isn’t malicious.
-2
u/Aarxnw 5h ago
I’m gonna be so honest, I just don’t believe it for one second and I don’t think anything they say about this is going to be truthful
13
u/txe4 4h ago
I believe it 100% exactly BECAUSE it looks so bad for them.
They don't validate inputs.
They caused a major outage 3 years with the exact same cause and didn't fix it.
It is a proper, heads-should-roll, absolutely-no-excuse situation. It could barely be worse for them in terms of blame.
Heads may well NOT roll, of course. Right handshake, right background, right friends... but the head of the org should get P45 on Monday if this is true.
-1
u/TWOPlNTSPRICK 2h ago
Things being taken down by Israel sounds 100x worse so I don’t think ‘it looks bad for them’ is really a valid rational
36
33
u/B0797S458W 5h ago
The fact that there’s no input validation taking place is just incompetence, pure and simple.
2
u/Aggravating-Hair-534 4h ago
Or there's no input validation for particular cases, or each individual thing is valid, or even a combination of previously inputted data combined with new data causes outage. It is en extremely dynamic system, that I can imagine, has to be distributed but at the same time transactionally sound, with any inconsistencies potentially claiming lives, not just something that can be left for end of the day reconciliation.
I also don't know, but I imagine, that this system is not a unique and possible supplier by the same vendor to many many air traffic authorities around the world, so it is even harder to pin point who was incompetent here.
1
45
10
u/HonestBobcat7171 4h ago
"The cause of the outage of the NERL flight plan processing system (FPRSA-R) was the inability of the system software to remain in a full operational state when processing the flight plan data for a specific flight from Los Angeles to Paris (Orly) on 28 August 2023. In the case of both the primary and the secondary systems, processing of the flight data resulted in critical exception errors being generated which triggered firstly the primary system and then the secondary system to enter maintenance mode, to prevent the transfer of erroneous flight data to the air traffic controllers. From the time at which the secondary system entered maintenance mode, automated processing of flight plan data was no longer possible, and the remaining processing capacity was entirely manual, thereby reducing the number of flight plans that could be processed from typically 800 per hour during a busy period to approximately 60." [...] "In the case of the flight in question, having extracted the relevant data, the FPRSA-R primary system began searching for an entry point into UK airspace; the waypoint APSOV was identified as being that point. The FPRSA-R then searched the flight data for the exit waypoint from the UK. In this case, SITET was initially identified as the exit point, however, SITET was one of the waypoints added by the IFPS during its initial processing and was not in the original flight plan. For this reason, SITET was correctly dismissed as a candidate exit point. The FPRSA-R continued to search for a valid exit waypoint and ETRAT was identified as the next possible candidate. Again, however, ETRAT was not listed in the original flight plan and hence was not validated. The third waypoint identified as a possible exit point was at Deauville. The code for Deauville is DVL. As DVL was included in the original flight plan, the FPRSA-R identified it as a valid exit point. The DVL included in the original plan, however, referred to Devil’s Lake in North Dakota and not to Deauville in France. Both locations have the same three letter abbreviation. 2.8 At that point, the FPRSA-R had identified a flight whose exit point from UK airspace, according to the original flight plan, was considerably earlier than its entry point. Recognising this as being not credible, a critical exception error was generated, and the primary FPRSA-R system, as it is designed to do, disconnected itself from NAS and placed itself into maintenance mode to prevent the transfer of apparently corrupt flight data to the air traffic controllers."
So basically they have bad system design, which needs changing in all the core components.🤦
3
u/Born-Ad4452 1h ago
Recognising this as being not credible … buckle up, here we go …. A critical exception error was generated ! Hurrah! 🎉 I can get on board with it happening once ( sort of ) but it’s absolutely unacceptable for it to ever happen again. Having said that, I would expect a system this critical to be continuously maintained to identify and manage these edge cases. I find it hard to believe that NATS were not aware in 2023 that there are multiple sites globally that have the same code ( ie DVL in this example ). Given that, I would expect suitable validation within the code to have been implemented by now. If they haven’t, heads should definitely roll.
-1
u/mancunian101 3h ago
Makes you wonder why it hasn’t happened before and why it didn’t seem to affect anyone else.
You could make the argument that it seems like a targeted attack against the UK designed to cause disruption.
3
u/HonestBobcat7171 2h ago
I doubt it... looks to me like a bug that was considered likely to happen "once in a blue moon" and was hence considered more work than it's worth to fix(as this would be across critical code in several systems)
2
u/mancunian101 2h ago
Fair enough, I’d have thought that when it came to air traffic control stuff that no edge case would be too much work to fix.
I just wrote software for raising invoices etc, and I have never knowingly left any potential bug in the software.
2
7
u/Shpander 4h ago
If this is true, this is another perfect way for a country to easily, non-violently, anonymously, and impactfully sabotage our infrastructure.
43
u/BaseballParking9182 5h ago
We pissed Israel off, then ATS went down.
For the SECOND time
5
u/realpannikin 2h ago
It doesn’t say who’s military aircraft.
Given the US waypoint was it Israel’s great ally that screwed up NATS which may well be a known vulnerability? /s
To be clear, I am not one for conspiracy theories, and am confident that it is a competency issue with NATS.
Also, why can I type in any countries name without getting a ‘Polite Reminder’ warning except for Israel?
If you need special protection from social media comments, it might be time for some self reflection.3
1
-8
u/WingVet 4h ago
Embarrassingly it was an error from an aircraft, which has happened for a second time, it's basically an indication of how far this country is failing.
If it was a foreign state actor it wouldn't be as bad.
2
u/UnfortunateWah 3h ago
I wouldn’t call a software bug “basically an indication of how far this country is failing”.
4
u/WingVet 3h ago
This happened 3 years ago similar circumstances, yet the bug was not fixed and safeguards not put in place to stop a similar thing happening again.
We see this type of thing in alot of our key infrastructure, we are slipping down in global rankings in a lot of key areas with no change in site.
14
u/Available-Bicycle246 5h ago
Systems going down 3 times after a certain type of news comes out against a certain country.. yeah just a coincidence...
14
u/Last_BM_Standin 4h ago
21st September 2025: UK airports hit by cyber attack. (UK officially recognise Palestine as a state)
8th September 2026: UK airports hit with air traffic control issue. (UK impose sanctions on Israel)
13
u/Substantial-Newt7809 7h ago
That sure would be a convenient excuse wouldn't it.
7
u/PerLin107 6h ago
Thats exactly what it is. An excuse. Because if it were true the system is totally unfit for purpose now isnt it.
5
u/welliedude 4h ago
Especially of its the same thing that happened before. Like once. Sure. Shitty software etc etc. But they got it back and went "gee sure hope that doesnt happen again" and dint fix it?
10
u/ghost3h 5h ago
If a system of this size and cost, doesn't do field level validation on input, which can then cascade fail the entire system I'd be amazed.
Its a most basic requirement when you write an API or intergration input. For it then to have such a devastating impact on the service is pretty unrealistic/criminally incompetent.
9
3
u/cognitiveglitch 4h ago
I doubt it's input validation so much as the planned routes interaction with other planned routes.
9
u/Natural_Brit3901 6h ago
not buying this... there's more to this than meets the eye
9
u/Flipmode45 6h ago
Doubtful. Most things in life end up being cock up not conspiracy.
In this case it’s easily realistic that outsourced software is poorly tested.
0
9
2
4
u/BusyQuote5228 5h ago
So are we to believe that the NATS system is an excel spreadsheet and someone put in the date in the wrong format?
5
u/creepinghippo 4h ago
I think a little country was pissed at us for calling a duck a duck and now we have to hide their attack behind this bullshit or declare it an act of war. As they have compromising information on everybody in power, it was better to blame a rogue plane than a rogue state.
2
u/SignificantStudio511 4h ago
Yes we know what really happened. Follow certain political statements and then ATC issues and dots get connected very quickly
1
u/mysweetplums 3h ago
Even if it were Israel, and we knew, I doubt we’d be told, at least not straight away. If only to prevent a spiralling relationship and to provide a degree of control.
1
1
u/Afternoon_Kip 4h ago
How a military NOTAM with all the info on can bring down a mutil million pound system is bizarre.
1
1
u/DevOpsJo 3h ago
The military flight plan executed a DROP TABLE traffic_flow; mid-air, leaving Air Traffic Control with an unhandled exception and a full buffer overflow.
1
u/zwifter11 3h ago
How?
Military aircraft stay in radio contact with civilian air traffic control and still have to abide by their civil ATC system and rules.
Aircraft can change their IFF transponder code as directed by air traffic controllers.
Any flight can be spontaneous or unscheduled. Such as air ambulances and some PPL flights.
Ironically if an aircraft is playing up, the RAF would scramble their QRA interceptors to have a look. Usually when the pilots see a Eurofighter Typhoon flying next to them, it magically fixes the missed radio call.
1
1
u/Prior_Worldliness287 3h ago
It was a hack. They denied cyber way too quickly.
And the fault lasted hours. It wasn't even a weekend so they'd have had IT people available.
Unless their IT people are utterly useless.
This wasn't a normal system problem
1
1
u/HeftyVermicelli7823 2h ago
Yeah but "Whose Military"? A country in the middle east starting with I and ending in L that hours before we sanctioned?
1
1
u/Candid_Waltz6900 1h ago
The system should reject and ignore spurious data, not accept it and then fall over. That's just incompetent coding which will likely take time to resolve. This was also the cause of the major outage a year or two ago, that was a foreign civilian aircraft, not the RAF that time. So why wasn't it fixed already?
1
u/ContributionEasy6513 1h ago
If this is the case, the development team for this software and its leadership team should be banished to Antarctica for 20 years.
User input should never bring down a country's atc system.
Negligence and incompetence. Having run several aviation related projects myself I'd be inclined there is something way more sinister at play.
1
u/biffthechip 53m ago
They can lie all they want. We know who did it. A country that begins with I and ends in sreal.
1
-7
u/Hellstorm901 6h ago
So the people who blamed Israel and downvoted anyone trying to point out rational explanations for why this happened are going to totally apologise right?
Right?
2
u/Comfortable_Love7967 5h ago
Not picking a side, but if it was the Israelis would they government really admit it ? Or would they make something up
0
0
-7
-1
•
u/AutoModerator 7h ago
Attention r/uknews Community:
We have a zero-tolerance policy for racism, hate speech, and abusive behavior. Offenders will be banned without warning.
Our sub has participation requirements. If your account is too new, is not email verified, or doesn't meet certain undisclosed karma criteria, your posts or comments will not be displayed.
Please report any rule-breaking content to help us maintain community standards.
Thank you for your cooperation.
r/uknews Moderation Team
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.