The incident forced the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to halt flights at airports across the Dallas area while the issue was being resolved, News.Az reports, citing CNN.
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.”
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.
