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I was on a direct flight from Heathrow to DFW when the captain announced that we needed to divert to Ottawa because "Air Traffic Control was down". We landed safely and were the first flight to re-enter US airspace two days later on 9/13.

When things go sideways, keeping everyone calm is a big part of the job, even if it means fibbing a bit.

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I was on a flight to Los Angeles when the Captain reported that the entire Southwestern US had lost contact with air traffic control, and we diverted IIRC to Chicago. The Captain said he didn’t know what was going on, and we called someone in LA using the overpriced airplane phone to confirm that LA still existed.

The Captain handled the diversion very nicely. He said we were welcome to deplane and walk around, and that he would give us a 15 minute warning when it was time to get back on the plane. Awhile later, the announcement came over the PA, we got back on the plane, and went to LA.

The root cause was timestamp overflow! https://m.slashdot.org/story/49885

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