NewsBelgium's airspace chaos: Radar glitch grounds flights

Belgium's airspace chaos: Radar glitch grounds flights

On Thursday, shortly after 9:00 a.m., Belgium closed its airspace. No planes could take off or land, and all aircraft in Belgian airspace were asked to leave. The decision was based on a failure in the air traffic control system.

Belgium closed its airspace. Technical issue
Belgium closed its airspace. Technical issue
Images source: © Getty Images | Rafael Cordero Torres

Belgian airspace is closed due to a technical issue at the company Skeyes, which is responsible for managing Belgian airspace, reported the lesoir.be service.

Around 9:00 AM, it became evident 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 during this time in the airspace controlled by Skeyes (up to about 24,600 feet above sea level, as Eurocontrol controls flights above this altitude and could still operate) were directed to neighboring countries. The Skeyes spokesperson added that this was done safely using system backups.

Radar failure the reason for the chaos?

According to information from lesoir.be, the issue was a failure of the Canac radar—the primary radar monitoring operations in Belgian skies. All flights coming from outside Belgium could not enter the country's airspace. No planes could land or take off at airports in Zaventem, Antwerp, Ostend, Charleroi, and Liège.

Gradual resumption of traffic

According to lalibre.be, after 10:00 AM, the Skeyes computer system was restarted, and air traffic gradually resumed.

"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 must wait and see how the rest of the day unfolds," he added.

For now, there is no official information on what caused the failure.

Related content