Control problem cuts European flights

BERLIN (AP) - A regional air traffic control system outage sharply limited flights around much of northern Europe Friday, causing delays for more than 1,000 planes.

An online map of flights showed delays of around 45 minutes for 1,036 flights landing, taking off from, or transiting Holland, northern Germany and parts of Belgium and Luxembourg at 1430 GMT (10:30 a.m. EDT).

The problem in the Maastricht, Netherlands, radar facility of the continent's Eurocontrol system temporarily halted flights above 7,500 meters (24,606 feet), said Axel Raab, spokesman for German air traffic control. The Maastricht facility handles around 5,500 flights a day.

Pilots could choose to fly at lower altitude, although that airspace could clog quickly, Raab said.

Eurocontrol officials did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment, but advised operators via a website that the situation in the sector was improving and capacity was being increased.

A Frankfurt airport official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information to the media, said the problem had been fixed.

Air traffic over western Europe was reduced by 25 percent between 1315 and 1330 GMT (9:30 a.m. EDT), but capacity was expected to be back up at normal levels around 1500 GMT (11 a.m EDT), Swedish Air Navigation Services spokesman Per Frober said.

Normally, when air traffic is under radar control, the distance between planes at any given flight level is five nautical miles.

Radar failures cause delays because they force air traffic controllers to increase the separation between planes up to five minutes, or about 40 nautical miles, thus reducing flow through the affected air space.

Nearly 30,000 flights were using European airspace Friday. Officials in Britain, Poland, Austria and the Baltic countries said their airspace was not affected.

___

Associated Press Writers Slobodan Lekic in Brussels, Belgium and Kirsten Grieshaber in London contributed to this report.