Posted on 06/26/23
| News Source: Pikesville Patch
Incoming flights were halted for a time Sunday evening at airports across the Baltimore-D.C. area —including Dulles, Reagan National and Baltimore airports —due to an equipment issue, according to federal authorities.
By 7:30 p.m. the airports reported operations returning to normal with departures from Washington Dulles International averaging 90 minutes and increasing due to equipment.
According to the FAA, the ground stop was ordered so repairs could be made to communication systems at the Potomac Terminal Radar Approach Control facility in Warrenton, Virginia, WTOP reported.
Dulles International Airport, Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Baltimore-Washington International Airport and Richmond International Airport were affected early Sunday evening, according to the FAA. Flights from New York bound for D.C. were exempt from the pause and flights departing D.C.-area airports continued, the agency said.
Departures to D.C.-area airports have resumed and repairs to the communications power panel are complete, the FAA tweeted shortly after 7 p.m. During the repairs, a back-up system handled communications.
The ground stop had initially affected all incoming flights, with the exception of those coming in from New York.
"The FAA has paused departures to D.C.-area airports while repairs to a communications system are made at Potomac Terminal Radar Approach Control facility," the administration tweeted just before 6:30 p.m. "The facility has switched to a backup system."
By 7 p.m., flights from the West Coast, Midwest and Florida headed for the D.C. area had resumed, according to the FAA. The repairs were finished shortly afterward, the administration tweeted.
"Departures to D.C.-area airports have resumed and repairs to the communications power panel are complete," said the tweet, timestamped 7:12 p.m. "During the repairs, a back-up system handled communications safely. Normal operations are resuming."
Despite multiple tweets from travelers about a fire causing the problem, spokespeople from the FAA and Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority both said there was no blaze.
Crystal Nosal of the MWAA said in an email that any reports of an air traffic control fire were false and that the ground stop "has nothing to with any of the facilities at our airports."