Greek flights restart after radio loss grinds airport operations to halt

Incoming and outgoing flights were temporarily suspended in airports across Greece after airspace radio frequencies were lost due to a technical problem that has confounded authorities.

Thousands of travellers were seen stranded at airports for several hours on Sunday as air traffic was crippled and communications were cut off.
Authorities said the disruption began just before 9am local time (07:00 GMT), when most aviation radio frequencies were hit by massive interference, forcing a precautionary shutdown of Greek airspace.

Greece’s civil aviation authority said an indeterminate “noise” impacted radio channels, but the cause was not clear.

“The ‘noise’ observed in the frequencies was in the form of continuous, involuntary emission,” it said in a statement.
Panagiotis Psarros, chair of the Association of Greek Air Traffic Controllers, said all frequencies were suddenly lost, so there was no way to communicate with aircraft in the sky.

He also blamed old systems, saying the ageing infrastructure should have been replaced many years ago.

The authorities were only able to service flyovers for hours before limited services were restored by Sunday afternoon through backup frequencies. Air traffic has been resuming progressively and is now fully restored, they said.

Christos Dimas, Greece’s infrastructure and transport minister, said the incident did not compromise flight safety.