UK air traffic failure was avoidable, transport secretary says

For the third time in three years, the United Kingdom's air traffic control network failed its passengers — not through malice or weather, but through a technical fault that authorities say could have been prevented. On a Tuesday afternoon in Hampshire, the computers that guide aircraft through British skies went silent for four hours, unraveling thousands of journeys and prompting Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander to demand independent accountability. The episode raises a question that transcends aviation: when a system essential to modern life repeatedly breaks down, at what point does apo