FAA says that the ‘multiple failures’ in technology caused DFW, the interruption of the field team

A land stop and an interruption of equipment that led to the cancellation and delay of hundreds of flights at DFW International and Love Field Airports on Friday night was caused by “multiple failures” of technology provided by an Internet provider based in Dallas, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

“Yesterday’s interruption was caused by multiple failures of the TDMI data telecommunications service provided by Frontier, a local telecommunications company,” the FAA said in a statement to Dallas’s morning news.

“This led to an interruption that impacted the installation of Dallas Tracon de la FAA.” A tracon installation is a FAA control center that provides services to aircraft as they approach and leave airports, according to the Skybary air security website. The centers handle air traffic within a radius of 30 to 50 miles and up to an altitude of 10,000 feet, the website said.

The operations both at DFW and Love Field airport have returned to normal levels, according to FAA, and the agency added that it is working with airlines in recovery plans for impacted flights.

Love Field is the base of operations of Southwest Airlines, which operates 18 of the 20 airport doors. American Airlines, based in Fort Worth, operates its central center outside DFW.

Between 3 pm and 6 pm on Friday, only nine American flights were able to leave DFW airport, said David Seymour, director of operations of the carrier, in a letter to the staff on Saturday. Seymour said American usually leaves about 100 flights per hour from DFW.

“At no time during these system interruptions in the DFW Metroplex was the safety of our plane, crew or compromised customers,” he said. “FAA’s rapid response to these interruptions said that a positive operational control was always maintained.”

In total, more than 530 American flights were canceled on Friday and another 160 on Saturday, according to Seymour. American is determining the financial impact of the interruption, he said.

From 2 pm on Saturday, the DFW airport had 251 delays and 155 cancellations, while Love Field had 46 delays and without cancellations, according to FlightAware data.

However, Friday’s interruption hit Fliers strongly. There were 607 delays and 510 cancellations in DFW and 224 delays and a cancellation in Love Field, according to FlightAware.

FAA officials said that the Aerospace and Defense Company L3Harris, a FAA contractor, “did not ensure that the redundancies in the system work correctly.”

“This is a clear example of the obsolete infrastructure of FAA and underlines the urgent need to modernize our air traffic control systems,” the statement said. “It also highlights the critical importance of eliminating thousands of state and local permits obstacles, which will delay modernization efforts for years. Going from aging and analog systems to more resistant digital technology, it is essential to maintain the reliability and resilience of the National Air Space System.”

Friday’s interruption in Dallas imitated similar air traffic control interruptions that occurred earlier this year near the Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey. In May, an interruption of 90 -second technology in an air traffic control installation eliminated radar and communications, according to a Wall Street Journal report. That interruption occurred less than two weeks after a similar interruption that affected air traffic controls in Newark at the end of April.

Earlier this year, Sean Duffy, the United States Secretary of Transportation, published a plan to review the country’s air traffic control system. His department said FAA plans to replace infrastructure networks such as radar, software, hardware and telecommunications to match modern trips.

He emphasized the plan in a publication on social networks about the interruption of the Dallas area.

“This is exactly the reason why @potus and I are working hard to build a new air traffic control system,” Duffy said in X “.” We will make interruptions like these as a thing of the past. “