Technical outage crippled Dutch air traffic for hours, authorities say

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch airspace was almost completely closed for nearly three hours late on Monday and early on Tuesday due to a technical outage of air traffic control systems, local authorities said.

The outage occurred at 11 p.m. local time (2100 GMT) on Monday and was resolved almost three hours later, Air Traffic Control Netherlands said.

During that time very limited air traffic was handled in Dutch airspace, while flights were diverted to other airports in the region.

The air traffic control authorities said they were investigating the outage, and gave no further details on the cause.

"We are aware of the unpleasant consequences this has for passengers, airlines, and the airport. Further investigation is being conducted into the cause of the malfunction that occurred," they said in a statement.

The outage mainly hit traffic to and from Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, one of Europe's busiest hubs, although the number of flights affected was limited because the problems occurred at night.

(Reporting by Bart Meijer; Editing by Jamie Freed)