Greece says no indication of cyberattack in airspace shutdown

Greece’s government said Monday that a major radio communications failure that shut the country’s airspace a day earlier is unlikely to have been a cyberattack, while authorities continued investigating what caused the outage.

Speaking as the disruptions were still being unwound, government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis said there was “not the slightest indication that we are dealing with a cyberattack,” adding that the matter was one the government wanted to address clearly.

The incident followed noise reported on multiple air traffic communication channels, which led Greece to ground, divert or delay flights across the country for several hours Sunday, according to the account of how the shutdown unfolded. The Greek Civil Aviation Authority said the noise affected all channels, including backup systems, and that it was this interference that triggered the shutdown.

The shutdown lasted several hours, and operations were gradually restored before the situation stabilized. Even with the recovery, incoming flights were diverted to several countries in the region, creating a large backlog and leaving thousands of passengers stranded.

Eurocontrol, the Brussels-based organization for air navigation safety, assisted in redirecting flights during and after the outage, it said. The agency said about 120 flights were grounded Sunday at Greece’s two largest airports in Athens and Thessaloniki, and it added that the disruption’s impact lasted through early Monday.

Greece’s Air Traffic Controllers’ Association said the failure underscored its long-standing calls to modernize and replace outdated equipment used in air traffic communications.

In the wake of the outage, a judicial inquiry and an internal investigation were launched Monday into the cause. Separately, Transport and Infrastructure Minister Christos Dimas announced the formation of an investigative committee that includes representatives from civil aviation authorities, the Greek air force, Eurocontrol and a Greek state-run cyberdefence agency.

Dimas described the Sunday disruption as “a very serious incident,” while stressing that passenger safety was never at risk.

For more on this event, the Associated Press report detailed how the shutdown began after noise was detected across communication channels and how diversions spread the disruption to airports beyond Greece.