3rd LD Writethru: Radar outage grounds flights across New Zealand

Passenger flights around New Zealand were taking off again late Tuesday after a radar failure grounded commercial air traffic nationwide for almost two hours.

Airways New Zealand, which monitors New Zealand airspace, issued a statement saying "an internal network failure" had occurred at 2.41 p.m. Tuesday.

"Airways immediately suspended all flights while we investigated the issue and until we could be satisfied that we could operate safely," it said.

The state-owned enterprise had identified the issue and thoroughly tested the integrity of the system.

"At no point was the safety of any airport operations compromised," it said.

Limited operations resumed at 4 p.m. and full service half an hour after that.

The Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement that flights were resumed on a priority basis with major trunk routes and jet flights resumed first.

Transport Minister Simon Bridges said the Civil Aviation Authority and Airways New Zealand had told him the cause of the failure was not yet known, but aviation safety was not affected.

"I have been assured that there is absolutely no compromise to the safety of passengers of planes and I will be receiving regular updates," Bridges said in a statement.

Auckland Airport, the country's main international gateway, issued a statement, saying international flights were again departing to schedule.

However, delays were expected in departures of domestic flights throughout the evening.

It advised passengers to contact their airlines for flight information.

Radio New Zealand reported that about 200 flights were affected by the fault, including 160 Air New Zealand flights. Endi