The Independent

The collapse of air-traffic control that caused major flight chaos and how it unfolded

Source: Lucy North/PA

At 8.32am on 28 August 2023, French Bee flight BF731 was flying over the ocean between Artic Canada and the southern tip of Greenland on a routine journey from Los Angeles to Paris Orly airport.

The flight had taken them over the western US and eastern Canada. Ahead, according to the flight plan, lay Northern Ireland, Wales and England before crossing the Channel and making landfall above the pretty French resort of Deauville.

As was normal, a flight plan had been filed to Eurocontrol – the pan-European air-traffic control service based in Brussels. This online document – as all flight plans do – resembled a coded message. It began “ORCKA5 LAS Q70 BLIPP Q842 WINEN MLF J107 OCS CZI DIK DVL …”

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