Belgian skies grounded: Air traffic fails after radar crash
On Thursday, after 9:00 AM GMT, Belgium closed its airspace. No planes could take off or land, and all aircraft in Belgian airspace were asked to leave. The reason for this decision was a failure in the air traffic control system.
Belgian airspace is closed due to a technical issue at the Skeyes company responsible for managing Belgian airspace, reported the lesoir.be service.
Around 9:00 AM GMT, it became clear that the air traffic control system used by Skeyes to manage Belgian airspace "was not functioning properly," said Skeyes spokesperson Kurt Verwilligen.
All planes flying at this time in the airspace controlled by Skeyes (up to about 7,500 metres above sea level; flights above this altitude are controlled by Eurocontrol and could still operate) were directed to neighbouring countries. This was done safely using system backups, added the Skeyes spokesperson.
Radar failure the reason for the chaos?
According to information from lesoir.be, the issue was a failure of the Canac radar - the main radar monitoring operations in Belgian skies. All flights coming from outside Belgium could not enter the country's airspace. At airports in Zaventem, Antwerp, Ostend, Charleroi and Liège, no planes could land or take off.
Gradual resumption of traffic
According to lalibre.be, after 10:00 AM GMT, the Skeyes computer system was restarted. Gradual resumption of air traffic began.
"Since it was not a peak time of the day, the effects of the failure are quite limited," informed Ihsane Chioua Lechli, spokesperson for Brussels Airport, to the destandaard.be newspaper. "Many flights experienced delays lasting from twenty minutes to over an hour. Two flights were redirected to Lille. Air traffic control is currently being gradually resumed. Now we have to wait and see how the rest of the day goes," he added.
For now, there is no official information on what caused the failure.
Source: lesoir.be, lalibre.be
