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Cyber-attack causes delays at Heathrow and other European airports
Heathrow is among several European airports hit by a cyber-attack affecting an electronic check-in and baggage system.
A number of flights were delayed at the airport on Saturday as a “technical issue” impacted software provided to several airlines.
Brussels Airport said a cyber-attack on Friday night meant passengers were being checked in and boarded manually, while Berlin’s Brandenburg Airport also reported longer waiting times due to the problem.
RTX, which owns software provider Collins Aerospace, said it was “aware of a cyber-related disruption” to its system in “select airports” and that it was working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.
The company added: “The impact is limited to electronic customer check-in and baggage drop and can be mitigated with manual check-in operations.”
It said its Muse software – which allows different airlines to use the same check-in desks and boarding gates at an airport, rather than requiring their own – had been affected.
The BBC understands that British Airways is operating as normal using a back-up system, but that most other airlines operating from Heathrow have been affected.
Hundreds of flights have been delayed at the airports throughout Saturday, according to flight tracker FlightAware.
Dublin Airport said it and Cork Airport had experienced a “minor impact” from the cyber-attack, with some airlines implementing manual check-in processes.
Lucy Spencer said she had been queuing to check in for a Malaysia Airlines flight for more than two hours, and that staff were manually tagging luggage and checking passengers in over the phone.
“They told us to use the boarding passes on our phone, but when we got to the gates they weren’t working – they’ve now sent us back to the check-in gate,” she told the BBC from Heathrow’s Terminal 4, adding that she could see hundreds of people queuing up.
Another passenger, Monazza Aslam, said she had been sitting on the tarmac for over an hour “with no idea when we will fly”, and had already missed her onward connection at Doha.
“I’ve been at Heathrow with my elderly parents since 05:00,” she said, adding: “We are hungry and tired.”
Johnny Lal, who was due to fly to Bombay for his mother-in-law’s funeral on Saturday, said he and his mother will now miss their flight.
He told the BBC his mother “can’t walk one step without her [mobility] scooter” but that Heathrow staff had been unable to provide her with one. “They keep just telling us the systems are down.”
Luke Agger-Joynes said that, while queues in Terminal 3 were “much larger than normal”, the airline for his US flight and the airport “seem to be prepared and the queues are moving much faster than I feared”.
He added: “They are also calling out specific flights and picking people out of the queue to ensure they don’t miss their flights.”
Heathrow said additional staff were at hand in check-in areas to help minimise disruption.
“We advise passengers to check their flight status with their airline before travelling to the airport and arrive no earlier than three hours before a long haul flight or two hours for a domestic flight.”
A National Cyber Security Centre spokesperson said: “We are working with Collins Aerospace and affected UK airports, alongside Department for Transport and law enforcement colleagues, to fully understand the impact of an incident.”
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said she was aware of the incident and was “getting regular updates and monitoring the situation”.
EasyJet and Ryanair, which do not operate out of Heathrow but are among Europe’s biggest airlines, said they were operating as normal.
Brussels Airport said there would be a “large impact on the flight schedule”, including cancellations and delays. Long queues and large crowds could be seen at the airport on Saturday morning.
Europe’s combined aviation safety organisation, Eurocontrol, said airline operators had been asked to cancel half their flight schedules to and from the airport between 04:00 GMT on Saturday and 02:00 on Monday due to the disruption.
Travel journalist Simon Calder said that “any disruption is potentially serious” at Heathrow, given it is Europe’s busiest airport, and that “departure control is a really complex business”.
He told the BBC: “These things are all interconnected, so a little bit of a problem in Brussels, in Berlin… people start missing connections, planes and passengers and pilots are not where they are meant to be, and things can get quite a lot worse before they get better.”
It was only last July that a global IT crash due to a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike caused disruption to aviation, grounding flights across the US.
Analysts said at the time that the incident highlighted how the industry could be vulnerable to issues with digital systems.
While there are unfounded accusations circulating that this cyber-attack was carried out by Kremlin-sponsored hackers, all major hacks in the past few years have been carried out by criminal gangs more interested in extracting money from their victims.
Extortion gangs have made hundreds of millions of dollars a year by stealing data or using ransomware to cause chaos and extract ransoms in bitcoin from their victims.
It is far too early to know who is behind this attack. Some cyber-security experts suggested this could be a ransomware attack, but note that these can be perpetrated by state-sponsored actors as well.
Collins Aerospace has yet to comment publicly about the nature or origin of the hack.
Many hacking gangs are headquartered in Russia or other former Soviet countries, some of which are thought to have ties to the Russian state.
But there have been plenty of arrests elsewhere, while British and American teenagers are accused of carrying out some recent large cyber-attacks against Las Vegas casinos, M&S, Co-op and Transport for London.
[BBC]
Federal authorities in the United States have charged the suspect who allegedly shot a US Secret Service agent as he tried to breach security at a press gala attended by Donald Trump with attempting to assassinate the US president.
Cole Thomas Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, also faces firearms charges in a three-count complaint, prosecutors announced on Monday.
In the case of a conviction, the attempted assassination of Trump carries out a sentence of up to life in prison.
Allen wore a blue prison jumpsuit at his first appearance in Washington, DC, federal court, two days after authorities said they foiled an attack at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, an annual black-tie gathering of journalists and politicians in the US capital.
“He attempted to assassinate the president of the United States, Donald J Trump”, prosecutor Jocelyn Ballantine said in court.
Allen has not yet responded to the allegations. Seated at the defence table flanked by US Marshals, Allen said he would answer all questions truthfully and that he had a master’s degree in computer science.
US Magistrate Judge Matthew Sharbaugh ordered Allen detained while the case moves forward. Sharbaugh scheduled another hearing over Allen’s continued detention for Thursday.
Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for Washington, DC, said further charges could be filed against Allen as the investigation proceeds.
“Make no mistake, this was an attempted assassination of the president of the United States, with the defendant making clear what his intent was – and that intent was to bring down as many of the high-ranking cabinet officials as he could,” Pirro told reporters on Monday.
She cited an alleged manifesto written by the suspect, saying that his targets were administration officials “prioritised from highest-ranking to lowest”.
Pirro added that Allen allegedly had a semiautomatic pistol, a shotgun and three knives. She said authorities believe the guns were purchased in California.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Allen travelled via train from his home near Los Angeles to Chicago and then to Washington.
[Aljazeera]
On Saturday, Delhi served up a belter of a pitch on which 265 played 264. Two days later, the adjacent surface produced a passage of play straight out of a spicy Test-match session. Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Josh Hazlewood maximised the swing and bounce on offer in the early exchanges to raze through Delhi Capitals. DC crumpled to 8 for 6 – their powerplay score of 13 was the lowest in a full IPL game – and were in danger of being dismissed for the lowest total in the league.
Contributions from the lower order helped them avoid that ignominy and dragged them to 75. Royal Challengers Bengaluru completed the demolition job with nine wickets and 81 balls to spare. They narrowed Punjab Kings’ lead at the top of the table to just one point and boosted their NRR.
The carnage began with Bhuvneshwar yorking IPL debutant Sahil Parakh for a two-ball duck in the first over and ended with DC being decimated for the lowest powerplay score.
The Delhi pitch didn’t misbehave, but offered swing and bounce throughout the powerplay. Bhuvneshwar and Hazlewood made the most of it to return figures of 3-0-5-3 and 3-0-8-3 respectively in the first six overs. At the innings break, Bhuvneshwar said that he was surprised that the ball swung for so long. Safe to say so were the DC batters.
Parakh, picked ahead of Prithvi Shaw, came in as a player with considerable reputation for an 18-year old. DC’s director of cricket Venugopal Rao believes he can play for India one day, but on Monday, his IPL debut lasted all of two balls. Bhuvneshwar hit his edge first ball with an outswinger and knocked out his middle stump with an inswinger next ball.
In the second over, Hazlewood hit the perfect length – neither short or full – with his first ball to KL Rahul and had him top-edging a pull to the wicketkeeper Jitesh Sharma. Hazlewood pushed his length and line fuller and wider next ball and found late away movement to have Sameer Rizvi nicking to Jitesh for a golden duck.
Tristan Stubbs denied Hazlewood a hat-trick, but in the next over he too edged behind, off Bhuvneshwar. With two slips in play, including a wide one, Rajat Patidar ramped up the pressure on DC and empowered his bowlers to keep attacking. When Bhuvneshwar also kissed Axar Patel’s edge, DC were 7 for 5 in the third over.
It soon became 8 for 6 when Hazlewood dug a snorter into Nitish Rana’s arm pit from around the wicket. Rana took his eyes off the ball and ended up fending it to Padikkal.
Even RCB couldn’t believe what had just transpired. Tim David covered his face in disbelief.
A dust storm, which caused a brief stoppage, and a 35-run partnership for the seventh wicket between Abhishek Porel and David Miller then gave DC some respite.
DC had pressed the emergency switch and brought Porel in as an Impact Player following the fall of the fifth wicket. The first shot of authority came from Porel when he swatted Rasikh Dar over midwicket for four soon after the powerplay.
Miller also seemed fairly comfortable against RCB’s change bowlers before Rasikh drew a top edge with a short ball that stopped on the batter. Batting at No.8 for the first time in his 565-match T20 career, Miller was dismissed for 19 off 18 balls.
Kyle Jamieson hit the first six of the game when he launched Romario Shepherd over square leg in the 11th over, but two overs later, Krunal Pandya pinned him lbw for 12 off 13 balls.
Porel hung around for 33 balls for 30 runs before he was the last man dismissed. He was also the only DC batter to pass 20 and took them past the lowest IPL total of 49. Hazlewood made a mess of his stumps with a searing yorker that tailed in from around the wicket.
Brief scores:
Royal Challengers Bengaluru 77 for 1 in 6.3 overs (Jacob Bethell 20, Virat Kohli 23*, Devdutt Padikkal 34*; Kyle Jamieson 1-42) beat Delhi Capitals 75 in 16.3 overs (AbishekPorel 30, David Miller 19, Kyle Jamieson 12; Josh Hazlewood 4-12, Bhuvneshwar Kumar 3-05, RasikhnSalman 1-21, Suyashb Sharma 1-07, Krunal Pandya 1-09) by nine wickets
[Cricinfo]
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Heat Index at Caution Level in the Northern, North-central and North-western provinces and in Colombo, Gampaha, Kegalle, Trincomalee and Batticaloa districts during the day time
Warm Weather Advisory
Issued by the Natural Hazards Early Warning Centre
Issued at 3.30 p.m. on 27 April 2026, valid for 28 April 2026.
The Heat index, the temperature felt on human body is likely to increase up to ‘Caution level’ at some places in the Northern, North-central and North-western provinces and in Colombo,
Gampaha, Kegalle, Trincomalee and Batticaloa districts during the day time.
The Heat Index Forecast is calculated by using relative humidity and maximum temperature and this is the condition that is felt on your body. This is not the forecast of maximum temperature. It is generated by the Department of Meteorology for the next day period and prepared by using global numerical weather prediction model data.
Effect of the heat index on the human body is mentioned in the above table and it is prepared on the advice of the Ministry of Health and Indigenous Medical Services.
ACTION REQUIRED
Job sites: Stay hydrated and takes breaks in the shade as often as possible.
Indoors: Check up on the elderly and the sick.
Vehicles: Never leave children unattended.
Outdoors: Limit strenuous outdoor activities, find shade and stay hydrated.
Dress: Wear lightweight and white or light-colored clothing.
Note:
In addition, please refer to advisories issued by the Disaster Preparedness & Response Division, Ministry of Health in this regard as well. For further clarifications please contact 011-7446491.
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