Radar difficulties and other technical problems had ground flights to a halt at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport in Texas and Love Field Friday. As of Saturday, an FAA update said Dallas area airports were operating normally and that previous issues had been identified.
“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.”
While the telecommunications issue may be local, flights being unable to take off or land in Dallas is jamming up passengers at airports across the country.
“We’ve lost all radar and phone communications,” the controller in the Dallas Love Field Air Traffic Control tower said in audio recorded by LiveATC.net, per CNN. “I’m not departing anybody until we can get a system setup. We have no coms with approach right now.”
DFW is the third-busiest airport in the world. Most flights have also been diverted at Kansas City Airport in Missouri.
According to FlightAware, 1,117 flights were canceled Friday, up from 627 Thursday. DFW had the most cancellations, with 278 as an origin airport and 231 as a destination airport. Though the ground stop was canceled Saturday, there were still 440 cancellations reported as of 10:30 a.m. CT, with DFW still reporting the most.