FAA halts flights into DFW, Love Field after Dallas TRACON outage

The Federal Aviation Administration on Friday afternoon slowed and halted flights into Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and Dallas Love Field after a widespread radar and communications outage at the Dallas Terminal Radar Approach Control disrupted air traffic control across the region. Controllers reported losing radar and phone communications with aircraft, prompting ground stops, diversions and widespread delays that stretched through the afternoon and into the evening.

FAA officials said the agency was slowing flights into both airports because of a reported equipment issue at Dallas TRACON, the control center that manages arrivals and departures for the two airports. Live recordings of air traffic communications captured on public monitoring sites included a controller saying, Im not departing anybody until we can get a system setup. We have no coms with approach right now, and a Southwest Airlines pilot telling a tower that Approach wanted to stop all departures because they could not get a hold of the tower.

Early in the afternoon the FAA reported hundreds of delays, with 273 delayed flights at DFW and 69 at Love Field by about 2 p.m. Central Time. Later tallies...