Posted on 01/05/2026 1:50:28 AM PST by EBH
Athens (AFP) – Flights at Greek airports were cancelled or delayed Sunday after a technical problem knocked out airspace radio frequencies, the country's civil aviation authority said, calling the outage "unprecedented".
At Greece's main airport, Eleftherios Venizelos in Athens, passengers were stuck in long queues as several domestic and international flights were delayed or grounded altogether, an AFP reporter saw.
The radio frequency loss was first reported around 0700 GMT.
"No plane landed or took off for at least two hours," said the press office at Athens airport, where 31.6 million passengers transited in the first 11 months of 2025.
For up to three hours, most aircraft headed for Greek airports were redirected to Turkey, according to Greek public television ERT.
(Excerpt) Read more at france24.com ...
Some military op ongoing?
Channel 9 on the CB?
“I’m going to Greece.”
“And swim the English Channel?”
(IYKYK)
Unlikely. It sounds like their ATC communications system lacks sufficient redundancy. There was a similar problem in New York about 40 years ago, when the FAA relied on ATT to provide a back up communication channel. There was an ATT facility that ran on batteries powered by the electrical utility. Every thing was fine, but the threshold for battery back up had been set incorrectly, and the back up channel was off line for a week while they got the facility back in operation. The operating rules did not allow more than a very limited number of flights in the air without a back up comms channel that connected New York center with the rest of the FAA centers, specifically New England and Southeast. Sounds like Greek towers lost voice links to aircraft. The system should have sufficient redundancy so that that is a less than once in a lifetime event.
I just had the frequency right here then I lost it. I’ll get back with you as soon as I find it.
The frequency was right there since it exists as a fact of our physical universe. What failed was the equipment & lack of redundancy, basically a human factors failure, as pointed out by other posters.
It turns out the "Unbound Prometheus" is very much bound - by the limits of the will and ability, as well as actual numbers, of those tasked to keep technological components working.
Whats the frequency Kenneth..?
Did they try asking, ‘What’s your vector, Victor?’ *SMIRK*
Am I to understand that some wavelengths in the radio spectrum have ceased to exist? Maxwell’s Equations have somehow become discontinuous? That’s disappointing.
The dial on my radio is blank. Weird.
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