PASSENGERS waited for hours in queues overnight after an airport IT system crashed – sparking “pandemonium” for thousands.
A glitch shut down Border Control e-gates at UK airports including Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester in a “major, major incident”.
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Families were reportedly forced to bed down for the night without food or water after being stranded at arrivals in the early hours.
Snaps show frazzled Brits waiting for their passports to be checked manually because of the software glitch.
Holidaymaker Sam Morter arrived at Heathrow from Sri Lanka only to be held up by blank screens at the Terminal 3 e-gates.
The 32-year-old said passengers were caught up in “pandemonium” at passport control.
He said: “There were a lot of Border Force officials running and scrambling around.
“Four or five went to man the posts and start processing the UK passports manually.
“But at the same time, hundreds of passengers started to flood into passport control.
“It all of a sudden became chaotic and they couldn’t cope with the number of the people coming in.”
The glitch appears to have been triggered by the Border Force’s £372million security database Border Crossing, launched in 2021.
A source told the Mail: “Clearly this is a major, major incident.
“You don’t expect this system to go down for any length of time across the board.
“The involvement of major airports in different parts of the country suggests this is a nationwide system crash.”
Surrey man Paul Curievici landed at Gatwick Airport at around 7.30pm on a flight from the French city of Lyon.
The 41-year-old waited in line for almost an hour at Gatwick passport control.
He said: “I was a little bit resigned at what initially looked like another British infrastructure failing.
It all of a sudden became chaotic
Sam Morter
“I had quite a lot of sympathy for the poor buggers furrowing their brows and trying not to look embarrassed.
“There was an awkward moment – half of us had been funnelled into the ‘all passports’ queue.
“When the system came back online they reopened almost all the UK/EU gates without opening any for us .
“I actually raised it with a member of staff and they finally opened one.”
Read more on the Scottish Sun
The Home Office said it had finally fixed the system at 2.10am this morning.
A spokesperson said the glitch is not thought to have been caused by a cyber-attack.