Giorgos Saunatsos, governor of the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority, resigned Wednesday following a communications blackout that disrupted air traffic across the Athens Flight Information Region earlier this month.
Infrastructure and Transport Minister Christos Dimas accepted the resignation, state broadcaster ERT reported. Giorgos Vagenas, deputy commander of air navigation, has been appointed interim head while the government moves to name a permanent successor.
The Jan. 4 outage caused widespread delays and grounded all flights in and out of Greece. An official report released Tuesday said the blackout was triggered by “digital noise” stemming from desynchronization among multiple devices and interfaces at the KEPATHM facilities. The malfunction activated key transmitters continuously, knocking out essential telecommunications systems.
Service was restored after technicians resynchronized equipment, rebooted systems and rerouted traffic through the backbone network, according to the report.
The disruption affected Athens International Airport, Thessaloniki Airport and several regional hubs, leaving thousands of passengers stranded and forcing inbound flights to divert.
