A radar system failure at the Area Control Center in Honduras disrupted international flights across Costa Rica and Central America on Friday, March 14. The precise cause of the failure has not been specified by authorities at this time.
Luis Miranda, Deputy Director of Civil Aviation, confirmed that flight operations in Costa Rica have resumed following a temporary suspension caused by issues in the Central American radar network. “After the necessary verifications to ensure flight safety, air traffic control services in Central America have been restored and are operating normally,” said Miranda.
Marcos Castillo, Director of Civil Aviation, explained that Costa Rican authorities were informed by the Cenamer Control Center of technical problems affecting air traffic control systems. As a result, flights in upper airspace were temporarily halted until systems were restored.
Cenamer, under the administration of the Central American Air Navigation Services Corporation (COCESNA), manages upper airspace across approximately 2,640,000 km². Located in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, its Area Control Center oversees Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, providing radar surveillance, traffic flow management, search and rescue coordination, and flight information services.
Air traffic above 19,000 feet was suspended, though internal flights and those below this altitude continued operating as national radar systems remained functional. The failure, which affected radar signals and frequencies, triggered contingency protocols across the region, including reliance on local systems for lower altitudes.
Aeris, the managing company of Juan Santamaría International Airport, reported that systems were restored around 1 p.m. on Friday, with the terminal now operating normally. The company advised passengers to check flight statuses directly with their airlines. According to Civil Aviation, five flights were unable to land at Juan Santamaría, while three others experienced takeoff delays. At Daniel Oduber Quirós International Airport in Liberia, all scheduled flights landed without issues, though no further details have been provided regarding departures.
The duration of the outage and the total number of affected flights region-wide were not immediately available. Officials have not yet indicated whether an investigation into the failure will be conducted.
