London’s Airspace Locked Down Over Computer Failure At Control Center

London’s airspace was locked down following a computer failure at a central control center, throwing traffic to and from Europe’s busiest airport into disarray.

Bloomberg reports that the fault is due to a technical glitch at the Swanwick air-traffic center, the NATS authority said in a statement on its website, and authorities are seeking to re-open the air space at 7 p.m. local time.

London’s Heathrow had 141 departure delays, representing 21 percent of flights, as of 3:40 p.m. local time, according to FlightAware.com, an aviation tracking website.

Fewer arrivals, 93 or 13 percent, were delayed, according to FlightAware.

“We apologise for any delays and our incident response team has been mobilised,” National Air Traffic Services said in the statement. “Every possible action is being taken to assist in resolving the situation and to confirm the details.”

Heathrow airport confirmed that there has been an issue at Swanwick, and that flights are experiencing delays.

The Swanwick operations room manages the en-route airspace over England and Wales up to the Scottish border as well as lower-altitude traffic to and from London’s airports.