NATS publishes preliminary report on technical incident of 8 September

On 8 September 2026, NATS (UK's air traffic services provider) experienced a widespread disruption caused by a software defect in a small section of code within the National Airspace System that incorrectly processed aircraft code allocation requests. The system malfunction forced restrictions across UK airspace for six hours, affecting hundreds of thousands of passengers, though safety was never compromised. NATS has identified the issue and implemented mitigation measures while a permanent fix undergoes safety testing.