An electrical failure has paralysed much of the air traffic in and over Belgium and is set to cause delays, detours and cancellations of flights for several hours.

The Eurocontrol air traffic body said the electrical failure at the local centre will force planes to be grounded or detoured until 2pm local time.

The cause of the failure was not immediately clear.

A spokesman for Air Malta said that its 4.05pm flight to Brussels and 7.50pm to Malta from Brussels would likely be delayed because of the backlog that is being created.

He apologised for the inconvenience

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.