Flooding from thunderstorm in Ottawa knocks out Nav Canada flight plan system

OTTAWA — The company that operates Canada’s civil air navigation service says flooding from a severe thunderstorm in Ottawa brought down its automated flight planning system early Saturday.

Nav Canada says there were delays, mainly affecting international flights, but the safety of the travelling public was not compromised.

CEO Neil Wilson said in a statement Saturday night that when water affected Nav Canada’s network that handles flight plans, staff were quickly moved to a facility where backup systems are located.

Wilson says there was no impact on air traffic control or communications with aircraft during the outage.

Wilson says the system was restored on Saturday afternoon, but there could be some delays as staff process backlogs. It’s not known how many flights were affected. 

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He says Nav Canada worked closely with its counterparts — the FAA in the U.S. and NATS in the United Kingdom — to adjust traffic flows during the outage.

“Delays occurred due to problems reinstating connectivity of the system with neighbouring air navigation service providers,” Wilson said in the statement.

“Nav Canada apologizes to customers and all members of the travelling public for any inconvenience arising from this unforeseen incident,” he said.

The Canadian Press