Belgian airspace reopens after closure forced PM Fico's flight to return to Slovakia

The system outage forced a plane carrying Prime Minister Robert Fico to turn around and head back to Slovakia.

Transcript

00:00Belgian airspace has reopened after a technical issue with the air traffic control Sky's computer

00:07system forced its closure for over an hour.

00:11Flights were unable to take off or land at any of the country's main airports, but a

00:15Sky spokesperson said a system reboot meant flights were gradually returning to normal.

00:22Because of a technical issue with the air traffic control, the air traffic in Belgium

00:28was temporarily suspended this afternoon and is now slowly resuming.

00:34The impact for us was that some flights were delayed, from 20 minutes to one hour, and

00:42two flights were deviated to the airport in Lille.

00:45So we will inform our passengers and now the situation is gradually stabilizing.

00:52Brussels airport says there may still be some delays while air traffic control clears the

00:57backlog and advises passengers to check with their airlines for updates.

01:02The system outage also forced a plane carrying Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico to turn

01:07around and head home.

01:09Fico was traveling to Brussels for a scheduled meeting with European Union officials.

01:14Fico's views on Russia have sharply differed from the European mainstream.

01:19He returned to power in 2023 after his leftist smear party won the parliamentary election

01:25on a pro-Russia and anti-America platform.

01:28Since then, he's ended Slovakian military aid for Ukraine, lashed out at EU sanctions

01:33on Russia and vowed to block Ukraine from joining NATO.

01:37He's also been a vocal critic of Ukraine's decision to end the flow of Russian energy

01:42exports to Europe.