Sonali Tiwary
Karmactive Team
Air traffic in Dallas slowly returned to normal after a telecommunications failure knocked out radar and communications at air traffic control facilities on Friday. The outage forced a virtual shutdown of the region’s airports for several hours, leaving thousands of travelers stranded.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) attributed the problem to a reported local telephone company equipment issue and said it was working to determine the cause, cutting off vital connections between the Dallas Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) and other air traffic facilities. The FAA emphasized that its own equipment wasn’t at fault.
“We’ve lost all radar and phone communications,” a controller at Love Field tower told pilots, according to recordings from LiveATC.net. Another controller at DFW Airport informed waiting aircraft, “I am currently stopped on all departures. This happened a couple of days ago where somebody cut a line and we lost everything, so bear with me.”
The technical breakdown highlights how air traffic control facilities depend on local phone companies for critical connections. When these telecommunications lines fail, controllers lose their ability to see aircraft on radar screens and communicate with other facilities, creating an immediate safety risk.
Ground stops were issued at both Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) and Dallas Love Field around 1:30 p.m. CT. Some flights began taking off again after 3:30 p.m. when the FAA lifted the complete ground stop but continued to slow traffic as systems were restored.
“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 agency said in a statement. “The FAA is working with the telephone company to determine the cause.”
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The disruption created a massive backlog that stretched into Saturday. By Friday evening, more than 430 flights were canceled and nearly 580 were delayed at DFW, according to flight tracking service FlightAware. Dallas Love Field saw more than 200 flight delays.
Passengers faced hours of uncertainty as departure boards filled with delay notices. “We just kept getting delayed, delayed,” passenger Krysta Wagner told CNN while waiting 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.”
The ripple effects were particularly severe because DFW is the world’s third-busiest airport and a major hub for American Airlines, while Love Field serves as a hub for Southwest Airlines.
Both airlines tried to accommodate affected travelers. American issued a travel alert allowing customers to rebook without change fees, while Southwest relaxed its rules for passengers wanting to fly on different days or receive refunds.
This Dallas outage follows other recent air traffic control system problems. Earlier this year, telecommunications failures between Long Island, New York and Philadelphia repeatedly disrupted flights at Newark Liberty International Airport. During one incident, radars went dark for 90 seconds and radio communications were cut for 30 seconds. Five FAA employees took extended trauma leave after that event, contributing to thousands of flight delays.
Just one day before the Dallas incident, Denver experienced a separate automation handoff issue that affected flights.
These recurring problems have spotlighted the fragility of the nation’s air traffic control infrastructure. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has been pushing Congress to support a comprehensive modernization plan.
“It’s a substantial piece of work and will take a substantial amount of money,” Duffy said earlier this year. Congress recently approved approximately $12.5 billion for modernization efforts, but complete system upgrades will take years to implement.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz acknowledged the situation on social media, saying his team was monitoring the grounded flights in Dallas and urging passengers to “remain patient as officials remedy the situation as soon as possible.”For travelers, the weekend disruption served as another reminder of how vulnerable the air travel system remains to technical failures, despite being one of the safest transportation networks in the world.
