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An air traffic control system failure that sparked widespread travel chaos earlier this month was caused by a “software defect”, the UK’s National Air Traffic Services (Nats) has said.

The failure led to more than 2,000 flights being cancelled and hundreds of thousands of passengers affected, with some sleeping on airport floors or getting stuck overseas.

Flights in and out of the UK’s main airports were affected, including Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Glasgow.

The incident prompted questions over the resilience of Nats’ systems, and some airlines questioned the position of its chief executive Martin Rolfe.

The government had previously ruled out a cyber attack, and last week the Ministry of Defence denied a report that a military aircraft was to blame.

In an initial report, Nats said the defect happened in the system which “underpins the management of UK airspace”.

The problem happened “in the space of a millisecond”, Nats said, leading to the system producing corrupted data.

Air traffic controllers then had reduced information available, so restrictions were put in place to limit air traffic to maintain safety.

Economy Minister Dr Caoimhe Archibald has questioned whether the secretary of state is “mischief making” after a social media exchange around energy payments.

The Sinn Féin MLA posted on X, external about a new one-off electricity bill reduction announced on Thursday, which Sir Chris Bryant, reposted, external saying: “I’m really glad that the UK government is funding this.”

Archibald said she was “bemused and surprised” at his “intervention on social media”.

A UK government spokesperson said the funding for the Household Electricity Discount Scheme was provided through the prime minister’s “commitment to remove VAT and some levies from electricity bills”.

“As I have set out, the British government initially didn’t intend that this support would apply here, we had to make the case for that, we then had to design a scheme,” Archibald told BBC Radio Ulster’s Talkback programme.

She described what Sir Chris said as “a little bit condescending”.

“Frankly I’m not sure what the secretary of state was up to, mischief making? I don’t know. But I think that question would be better posed to him.”

The minister said she has not been in touch with the secretary of state personally since the online exchange, but said she will continue to focus on finding a way forward in budget negotiations.

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