A MILITARY aircraft entering “spurious” flight data sparked the air traffic control meltdown which grounded thousands of planes.

The UK military aircraft submitted a flight plan it is understood, which caused several hours of chaos for the National Air Traffic Services (NATS) on Tuesday.

British skies were shutdown for four hours and it took several attempts for the systems, which manage 8,000 flights a day, to restart.

Kathryn Leahy, NATS operations director, told industry bosses about the source of the disorder during a briefing on Tuesday evening, an insider said.