Glitch grounds Greece

AIRPORTS: COUNTRY FORCED TO CLOSE AIR SPACE FOR HOURS, IMPACTING THOUSANDS

- 

WAITING. Passengers crowd Thessaloniki Airport Makedonia amid disruption in flights across Greece linked to a technical problem at the Athens Flight Information Region in Thessaloniki.

(AFP)

A deeply embarrassing systems failure which forced Greece to close its airspace for several hours, with pilots unable to speak to air traffic control, has exposed badly outdated communication systems at Athens International Airport - one of the world's top travel destinations.

Flights had to be diverted to neighbouring countries with thousands of travellers hit after the “unprecedented” technical malfunction on 4 January, which baffled experts.

Even more than a week after the chaos, questions as to what sparked the glitch - and how the system returned online - remain unanswered, with a report expected this week.

According to the Greek civil aviation authority, the YPA, the malfunction began at 8.59am when multiple radio frequencies serving Athens airspace were hit by continuous “noise” interference.

The agency's transmitters began sending out “involuntary signal emissions”, YPA said.

As technicians raced to radio relay stations on top of mountains near Athens and further afield to locate the problem, planes were essentially flying blind, experts said - unable to communicate with air traffic controllers – until the incident began to gradually abate four hours later.