Athens (AFP) – A deeply embarrassing systems failure forced Greece to close its airspace for several hours, leaving pilots unable to communicate with air traffic control. This incident has exposed the badly outdated communication systems at Athens International Airport, one of the world’s top travel destinations. Flights had to be diverted to neighboring countries, affecting thousands of travelers after the “unprecedented” technical malfunction on January 4, which baffled experts. Even more than a week later, questions remain about what caused the glitch and how the system returned online, with a report expected this week.
According to the Greek civil aviation authority, the YPA, the malfunction began at 8:59 am (0659 GMT) when multiple radio frequencies serving Athens airspace were hit by continuous “noise” interference. The agency’s transmitters began sending out “involuntary signal emissions,” according to the YPA. As technicians rushed to radio relay stations on top of mountains near Athens and further afield to locate the problem, planes were essentially flying blind, unable to communicate with air traffic controllers, until the incident gradually abated four hours later.
“Hundreds of flights were directly affected — those in contact with air traffic control or already in the air that changed their route,” Foivos Kaperonis, a board member of the Greek air traffic controllers association (EEEK), told AFP. Athens International Airport handled over 280,000 flights last year, averaging over 760 a day. Officials have insisted that Athens airspace was quickly cleared of traffic, and that flight safety was not compromised. The system returned to full operation at 5 pm (1500 GMT), with flights restored 45 minutes later, the YPA said. No signs of a cyberattack or intentional sabotage were detected, and nothing suspicious was found at the relay stations. Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis later confirmed there was “no sign” of a cyberattack.
“We have an exact picture of what happened. What we don’t yet know is how it happened,” said Michael Bletsas, one of Greece’s top computer engineers and head of the Greek cybersecurity authority, in an interview with state TV ERT. He noted that while planes “may have flown ‘deaf’ for a short while,” there was “under no circumstances” a flight safety problem, as pilots still had their radar. “Every system fails at some point,” Bletsas said, who is part of the committee investigating the incident. Kaperonis, however, is much less sanguine. He pointed out that air traffic controllers could see the aircraft on the radar, but they could neither hear nor communicate with the pilots. “In other words, if two aircraft had been on a collision course, controllers would not have been able to give them instructions,” he added.
George Saounatsos, the head of the YPA, mentioned that a report on the incident by a hurriedly convened investigative committee would likely be delivered this week. “It was a rare event — it’s hard for this to happen again, even statistically,” he told Open TV. A major infrastructure overhaul costing 300 million euros ($350 million) is currently underway, which includes digital transmitters that will be delivered this year, Saounatsos noted.
Greece’s junior transport minister admitted that the airport’s communications systems should have been upgraded “decades” earlier. “These are systems we know are outdated,” Konstantinos Kyranakis told Action24 TV. He highlighted that the Athens airport tower radar dates back to 1999. “Clearly, systems that should have been replaced decades ago cannot be replaced in nine months,” Kyranakis stated, noting that four different transport ministers have held the portfolio since 2019 when conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis came to power.
Bertrand Vilmer, an aeronautics expert and consultant at Paris-based Icare Aeronautique, remarked that Athens’ largely analog-based systems “are robust but for which there’s no longer really any possible maintenance because they’re old.” Last month, the European Commission referred Greece to the EU Court of Justice for failing to implement measures to design and publish performance-based navigation (PBN) procedures at Greek airports that should have been established five years ago. Air traffic controllers, who have clashed with YPA for years over staff and infrastructure shortages, insist that the January 4 incident was a debacle waiting to happen.
They argue that the incident is particularly concerning in a country heavily reliant on tourism, which has seen record visitor numbers in recent years. “The air traffic control unit where the problem appeared handles up to nearly 5,000 flights per day during the summer season,” Kaperonis noted. Air traffic controllers require “long rest periods” due to the difficulty of their job, according to Vilmer. Meanwhile, YPA and the transport minister’s office did not respond to questions.
Athens International Airport handled nearly 34 million passengers last year, an increase of 6.7 percent over the previous year. Critics have also pointed out that Greece’s worst rail disaster, when two trains collided in 2023, killing 57 people and bringing hundreds of thousands onto the streets to protest, was also partly caused by chronic infrastructure and staffing failings.
© 2024 AFP
