After Delhi, flight operations affected at Mumbai airport
What's the story
Flight operations at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai were disrupted on Friday due to a technical glitch. In a statement, the Mumbai airport said flight operations were affected "by a technical issue impacting the Automatic Message Switching System (AMSS) at Delhi, which supports Air Traffic Control flight planning." "The concerned authorities are actively working to resolve the issue at the earliest."
Advisory issued
Passengers advised to check with airlines for updates
Over 400 flights were delayed at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport due to a technical issue in the Air Traffic Control system, Flightradar24 data showed. Speaking to ANI on the cause of the delay, aviation expert Captain Sharath Panicker said, "The failure of the system basically means that the flight plans, which each aircraft has to submit prior to operating, instead of being interpreted by the computer and automatically, have to be manually fed into the system."
Manual intervention
Meteorological information
In addition to that, all the meteorological information that comes from all meteorological stations across the country is integrated into one conduit, which is available in the form of the Automatic Terminal Information System, or the ATIS. This would also have to be done manually, Panicker said. "Once the aircraft is in the air, there is not much delay expected, but the process of getting it into the air would take longer," he added.
Ongoing probe
Investigation underway to determine cause of failure
Sources told CNN-News18 that authorities are investigating whether the failure was caused by an overload in automation software due to possible malware intrusion attempts. The investigation is focusing on system interfaces or radar synchronization modules. The disruption also affected several international airlines, including ITA Airways and Virgin Atlantic, with flights to Rome and London being delayed by nearly two hours and over an hour, respectively.