CAAP douses hacking speculations after PH airspace shutdown

The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) on Monday doused speculations that its system was hacked following the glitch that practically closed the Philippine airspace on New Year's Day.

Interviewed on Dobol B TV, CAAP spokesperson Eric Apolonio said he is aware of speculations circulating on social media that the glitch happened because their system was hacked.

According to him, the Communications, Navigation and Surveillance Systems for Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM) is the "most well-secured facility" of CAAP.

"But alam niyo po itong CNS/ATM, ito po yung pinaka-well-secured na facility ng CAAP. Hindi basta puwedeng makapasok dito at may redundancy at may mga camera kaya makikita kung may human intervention na nangyari," Apolonio said.

(This CNS/ATM is the most well-secured facility of CAAP. It cannot be penetrated easily because there is redundancy and there are cameras so we can see if there is human intervention.)

On the first day of 2023, at least 282 flights were canceled, diverted, or delayed as CAAP recorded a technical issue at the Philippine Air Traffic Management Center (ATMC) at 9:50 a.m.

Some 56,000 passengers were affected at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA), the country's main gateway.

CAAP Director General Manuel Tamayo said one of the uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) failed on Sunday morning and troubleshooting activities had to be done.

Once the system was reconnected to the power supply, however, warnings were released at around lunch time due to over voltage as 380 volts were coming in instead of 220 volts.

This then affected the very small aperture terminal (VSAT), which also had to be addressed.

According to Apolonio, all of the 44 CAAP-operated airports except NAIA have returned to normal operations as of Monday morning.

“Normal na po yung operations kasi ang problema lang po is yung recovery flights sa NAIA dahil talagang NAIA ang talagang marami talagang flights,” he said.

(We have normal operations except at NAIA because there are just too many flights there.) —KBK, GMA Integrated News