Planes were grounded at a Paris airport last weekend, after a comedy of errors emanating from software underpinned by the ancient operating system, Windows 3.1.

Paris Orly airport closed its runway on the morning of 7 November, with flights diverted to Paris Charles de Gaulle and Lyon airports, following a critical infrastructure failure caused by a system called DECOR.

DECOR links air traffic control systems directly with Meteo France and is vital for taking off and landing in low-visibility situations like mist and fog.

It also runs on Windows 3.1, which was released in 1992 and retired on 31 December 2001.

Le Canard Enchain, a French magazine that first reported the cause of the incident, said that only three engineers are allowed to touch the "capricious beast".

These engineers had been working to restore DECOR for many hours before the runway was closed for an hour for safety after fog set in.

The outage also had political ramifications - the Republicains, a political party set up by former president Nicolas Sarkozy, had to do without two of their big hitters, former Prime Minister Alain Jupp and MP Eric Ciotti, who were left stranded at their points of origin.

But the story doesn't end there.