The head of Greece’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has resigned from his post following the conclusion of an investigation into what caused an air traffic radio blackout earlier this month.
On January 14, 2026, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport confirmed that Giorgos Saunatsos, had submitted his resignation to the department’s minister Christos Dimas, who accepted the decision.
On January 14, 2026, a special committee submitted its findings to the Greek government surrounding aircraft being grounded for several hours on January 4, 2026.
During the incident air traffic controllers “could not communicate with aircraft in the sky” with almost all frequencies of the Athens Flight Information Region (FIR) impacted.
According to the report, a “digital noise” heard over communications was caused by desynchronization when multiple systems arrived at the Athens Area Control Centre (KEPATHM).
This then resulted in the “unintentional activation/continuous emission of a critical number of transmitters and the degradation/disruption of critical telecommunication interfaces”.
While the investigation could not single out the exact cause, the report said that the existing Voice Communication System (VCS) and the critical telecommunications infrastructure used to support it were “based on outdated technology”.
“SDH – Synchronous Digital Hierarchy – is no longer supported by the manufacturer, without the ability to provide substantial operational guarantees,” added the report.
ekathimerini reported that recommendations were made to the CAA in 2019 that its systems required new circuits.
Among the report’s recommendations was the acceleration of the transition to Voice over IP (VoIP) technology and relocation of the KEPATHM facilities to a more suitable environment.
On January 5, 2025, the Head of the Athens Misdemeanor Prosecutor’s Office, Aristidis Koreas, ordered a preliminary investigation to establish what went wrong.
The probe was be led by the police’s electronic crime team but the report gave no evidence that the outage was caused by a cyber attack.
