Radio failure grounds flights at West airports

Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2004 | 11:03 a.m.

All flights at McCarran International Airport, Southern California and Arizona airports resumed flying after they were grounded for almost three hours Tuesday because of a radio failure at a Federal Aviation Administration control center.

The outage occurred at 4:40 p.m. at the Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center in Palmdale, Calif., a desert area north of Los Angeles. The center controls air traffic in Los Angeles, northern California, Las Vegas and Arizona, FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said.

The outage cascaded from Los Angeles International Airport to McCarran. The FAA ordered a total ground stop order at 5 p.m., Clark County Aviation Department spokeswoman Debbie Millett said.

"This is rare," Millett said.

Flights in Las Vegas resumed at 7:45 p.m. when the FAA lifted its stop order. The cause of the radio failure, which had not been determined late Tuesday, is being investigated by the FAA.

Airport officials said the last grounding at McCarran was on 9/11, part of the nationwide shutdown that followed the terrorist attacks.

Tuesday nights are generally slow at McCarran, so once the communications problem was fixed, traffic returned to normal within hours.

"If it had to happen, it is a good thing it happened on a Tuesday night," Elaine Sanchez, Clark County Aviation Department spokeswoman, said. The busiest days at McCarran are Thursdays and Sundays.

Passengers shuffled along, dragging luggage, children and pets as they searched for the latest flight information on arrival and departure screens.

Sam Chamberlin of Los Angeles was trying to get home after a business trip to Las Vegas.

"They say everything stays in Las Vegas," Chamberlin said, "and now anything that lands in Las Vegas stays."

Some inbound flights never made it to Las Vegas.

Len Schulze of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., had checked into Caesars Palace to escape Hurricane Ivan bearing down on the Gulf Coast. He came to the airport to meet a friend flying in Tuesday night from Fort Lauderdale, but neither flight nor friend had arrived.

"I'm booked at Caesars even though Ivan is missing Fort Lauderdale," Schulze said after learning flights coming to Las Vegas would be delayed for hours.

Ian Hickman sat on the floor in the middle of the airport, his laptop open and his cell phone at the ready. He flew into Las Vegas from Los Angeles Tuesday morning and was returning the same evening after a day of business.

"Hopefully, they'll cancel the flight," Hickman said. "If they said they weren't flying out till tomorrow, I'd go do something else."

Hickman said he had no time during his business trip for gaming or a restaurant meal or even a drink.

As for work demanding attention on the computer screen, Hickman said, "Hopefully, I can get it all done tonight. A beer would be better."

Kari Meyer had put in a full day training employees in pharmaceutical sales.

"Everyone else on my job is home," Meyer said. "My flight was 45 minutes long. Now it's turning into an all night thing."