A radar fault in New Zealand’s air traffic control system has grounded all scheduled commercial and passenger planes across the South Pacific country.

Airways New Zealand, responsible for air traffic throughout the country, said on Tuesday that all flights, including international and domestic services, were prevented from taking off after they were affected by internal network failure.

A spokeswoman for the state-owned company said technicians were working to find the cause of the fault.

“There has been a radar failure that has occurred at 2.48pm (0248 GMT) this afternoon, we are working on the issue at the moment,” she told AFP.

“The impact is that all aircraft have been held on the ground. There are no aircraft taking off across the country. The aircraft that are in the air have been cleared to land,” she added.

New Zealand’s Transport Minister Simon Bridges said he has been informed by the Civil Aviation Authority of the nationwide air radar network outage.

Auckland International Airport, the country’s largest, warned travelers to expect delays in the flights.

SF/MKA