A radar problem in New York brought chaos to the skies around Bermuda at the weekend.

Aircraft over parts of the North Atlantic, including Bermuda, were grounded or diverted on Saturday after a software problem at the New York Federal Aviation Administration centre.

Some planes already in the air were ordered to land at the island’s airport until the problem was fixed.

The problem started at about 11.30am, but air traffic control services were operational again by about 1.30pm.

A spokeswoman for Bermuda airport operators Skyport said: “As flights were unable to take-off or land during the outage, some flights already airborne, were diverted to the LF Wade International Airport, including five departing the East Coast that were en route to Barbados and St Martin respectively.”

She added: “The five flights that had been diverted to the island were refuelled and cleared for departure shortly thereafter, while the regularly scheduled Delta flight 1773 to New York JFK, normally due to depart at 1.00pm, left the island at 2.05pm.

The spokeswoman said: “Regularly scheduled flights to Bermuda from Atlanta, Philadelphia, Toronto and Boston that had been temporarily grounded have been cleared to depart and are now set to arrive later this afternoon.”