Birmingham Airport was forced to halt arriving flights on Sunday evening after its air traffic control radar was knocked out by a power cut, according to The Independent.
Flights heading to Birmingham were told to turn back or divert to other airports, including East Midlands, Liverpool, Bristol, Manchester and London Stansted.
The diversions began at around 9.10pm, when an easyJet flight from Lanzarote was re-routed to Stansed, although a Jet2 flight from Faro managed to land at Birmingham at 9.15pm before later flights were diverted elsewhere.
Airlines that were forced to divert include Air France, KLM, Ryanair and TUI. The latter’s flight from Boa Vista landed at Bristol instead.
A spokesperson for National Air Traffic Control said the power failure was due to damage to an overhead line caused by bad weather.
They told The Independent: “We have restored our radar serving Birmingham airport following an earlier power outage caused by bad weather and it is now operating normally again.
“We are working closely with the airport as they resume their air traffic service and apologise to passengers who are affected by this issue.”
A Birmingham Airport spokesperson told Travel Gossip flights were back to normal today. They added: “Due to a power outage at the NATS’ radar that serves Birmingham Airport, departing flights saw minor delays and arrivals were suspended between 2100 and 0015 hours.
“We worked closely with NATS during the evening to rectify the issue and apologise for the delay to customers.”
