ATC software failure delays morning flights at Mumbai airport

Mumbai, Jul 3: Around 30 flights at the Mumbai airport were cancelled in the wee hours of Sunday as the new Air Traffic Control software undergoing test run failed, airport officials said.

The Auto Track-III software, the new upgraded software supplied by the US Defence contractor Raytheon failed between 3.15 am and 4.55 am, forcing the Auto Track-II to pull in the back-up system which helped avert major delays and threat to safety, they said.

Raytheon had recently won the contract to upgrade the Air Traffic Control (ATC) software with Delhi and Mumbai airports currently in the process of migrating to the new system.

Since it was a lean hour being a Sunday morning and also it was the same time when the airport is shut down for half-an-hour for regular cleaning and maintenance purposes of the runway, the number of flights impacted was limited.

Around 12 arrivals and nearly 20 take-off flights, primarily bound to the gulf sector were affected, sources said.

The new software had earlier also caused problems at the Delhi airport.

PTI