Italian Air Traffic Control Asks Whole Country to Try Turning It Off and On Again

ROME — Italy’s air traffic control agency spent Friday morning working through its official national recovery procedure, which begins with asking whether anyone has tried turning the country off and on again, after a fault in its data network delayed and cancelled flights from Milan to Palermo.

ENAV said it spotted “anomalies” overnight in the network that keeps planes informed of one another and cut traffic capacity while engineers investigated. The agency stressed that no hackers were involved, a reassurance that passengers at Fiumicino described as “somehow worse.”

“We have ruled out malicious activity,” said network supervisor Fabrizio Spegnetti, holding a power strip the size of a loaf of bread. “What we have not ruled out is Sardinia. Sardinia has been plugged in very loosely since 2011.”

While the system rebooted, controllers fell back on the agency’s secondary system, a single man on the roof of Terminal 3 with two orange paddles and a very loud voice. “I am doing my best,” said the man, Gino Bracciaforte, 61. “I can see about four planes. The rest I am going by sound.”

Stranded travelers were offered vouchers redeemable for one espresso, to be served once the espresso machine was plugged back in, since it shared an outlet with the national network.

By Friday afternoon, engineers said they had traced the anomaly to a router in Bologna that had been unplugged so someone could charge a phone.

“It was at four percent,” Spegnetti said. “We are not monsters.”