UK air traffic chief rules out cyber attack after massive disruption at Heathrow

Delayed passengers wait and queue with their luggage at Terminal 3 of London Heathrow airport, west of London on September 8, 2026, following major disruption due an issue affecting the NATS air traffic control systems. Henry Nicholls | Afp | Getty ImagesThe head of U.K. air traffic control services has said he does not believe a cyber attack caused the software issue that disrupted hundreds of thousands of passengers with flight cancelations on Tuesday. "Obviously we will be doing a very thorough and full investigation. We have at this point ruled out cyber, we don't believe it was a cyber attack," Martin Rolfe told BBC Radio 4's Today program on Wednesday. "I don't believe we've ever seen an incident happen more than once, so this will be something different that we've never seen in 50 years of operation," he added. Flight tracking website Flightradar24 said 1,300 flights were canceled to and from U.K. airports on Tuesday, and that 177 flights had been canceled as of early Wednesday morning. Nearly all the cancelations were at London's Heathrow, one of Europe's busiest airports. London's Stansted and Gatwick airports, Birmingham and Manchester were also severely impacted.The tech...