A telecommunication outage caused Federal Aviation Administration air traffic controllers in Dallas to lose radar and some communications Friday afternoon, leading to flights being stopped at the area’s airports.
After a virtual shut down of airports across the city, some flights were allowed to resume after 3:30 p.m. CT.
“The FAA is slowing flights at Dallas Love Field and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport due to a reported local telephone company equipment issue,” the FAA said in a statement. “The FAA is working with the telephone company to determine the cause.”
Air traffic controllers rely on telecommunications lines from local phone companies to connect their facilities, including the airport towers and the Terminal Radar Approach Control, which handles flights arriving or departing airports.
“We’ve lost all radar and phone communications,” the controller in the Love Field Air Traffic Control tower said in audio recorded by LiveATC.net. “I’m not departing anybody until we can get a system setup. We have no coms with approach right now,”
“Approach wanted to pass on to you to stop all departures. They can’t get a hold of you. They are having some com issues, I guess,” a Southwest pilot told the Love Field tower.
“Yeah, I think the entire Metroplex just went down,” the controller responded on the radio. “We got a hold of somebody.”
On the other side of the city, controllers were busy shutting air traffic at DFW.
“I am currently stopped on all departures,” the tower controller told pilots lined up to take off. “This (also) happened a couple of days ago where somebody cut a line and we lost everything, so bear with me… I have no idea how long we are going to be stopped.”
People wait on a plane at Dallas Fort Worth airport on Friday, September 19 – Courtesy Tanisha Krznarich
There were over 430 cancellations and 580 delays at DFW, along with over 190 delays at Love Field as of Friday evening, according to the website FlightAware.
“We just kept getting delayed, delayed,” Passenger Krysta Wagner told CNN’s Lorenzo Ferrigno as she waited in line to rebook at DFW. “They let us know that there was an air traffic control issue and there was just too much delay, so we’re going to miss our layover.”
Passenger Kevin Hensley gave up getting home to Boston tonight after standing in line for more than a half hour.
“There’s actually about it looks like about another half hour to wait,” he said. “I have a flight tomorrow morning. I’m just going to take that.”
Marion Anson-Perchal from Wichita Falls, Texas was going to Florida, but her flight was canceled.
“Hopefully they can rebook us and get us to Miami before 12 tomorrow, or we are going to miss our cruise,” she said.
DFW is the third-busiest airport in the world and a major hub for American Airlines. Southwest Airlines operates a hub at Love Field.
“As the FAA and its provider work to resolve the issue, American has issued a travel alert allowing customers whose travel plans are affected to rebook without change fees,” the airline said in a statement posted to X.
Southwest also relaxed rules for passengers wanting to fly on different days or get a refund.
“We are resuming normal operations and will do our best to minimize further delays,” airline spokesman Lynn Lunsford said.
Earlier this year, problems with a phone company telecommunications line between Long Island, New York and Philadelphia caused Air traffic controllers there to repeatedly lost contact with flights approaching or departing Newark Liberty International Airport.
On April 28, when the existing cable failed, radios were silenced for 30 seconds and radar scopes went dark for 90 seconds. Five FAA employees working in the facility took 45-days of trauma leave, leading to thousand of delayed flights. Three more outages occurred since then, before a new fiber optic cable became operational.
Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy is asking Congress to support a plan for a brand-new air traffic control system, which will cost billions of dollars.
“It’s a substantial piece of work and will take a substantial amount of money,” Duffy said earlier this year.
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