At the time passengers on one of the flights were told Oceania airspace was closed. Photo: Flight Radar
Airways NZ releases report into August radar outage
The head of Airways NZ is confident there were no mistakes made by his staff after a 20-year-old software glitch left planes circling in the air.
The aircraft service provider has released its investigation into the 16 August issue with its oceanic air traffic control system.
It was caused by a problem with its software's code that had been there for more than 20 years.
The organisation did regular testing of its system but, Airways NZ chief executive James Young told Morning Report it was not picked up.
"It has never presented itself in the past, no."
Young said the computer problem had since been patched.
His workers managed the situation effectively, he said.
"They followed all of our established procedures, they ensured safety was protected at all times and they also restored the system quite quickly. The outage itself lasted for 49 minutes."
As the owner of the software Airways NZ took responsibility for the problem, Young said.
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