On Thursday 3 April 1997, at 1912 hours, the Airways Corporation communications network system suffered a failure which caused a temporary loss of all Air Traffic Control very high frequency radio communications in the Wellington Sector.
Subsequent modifications to the system and procedures will reduce the chance of a similar failure.
A safety issue identified was the inadequacy of the "communications failure" information in the Instrument Flight Guide for pilots, in the case of a failure of communications from Air Traffic Control.
