Federal Aviation Administration officials issued ground stops for flights to multiple airports in the Washington, D.C., region Friday after evacuating a key air traffic control facility in Virginia.
The ground stop affects Ronald Reagan Washington National, Washington Dulles International, Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall, as well as the Charlottesville and Richmond airports. FAA alerts indicate that flights could be delayed on the ground or held in the air for up to an hour.
BREAKING: Potomac TRACON, the key radar facility handling D.C. airspace, has been evacuated to “ATC ZERO” according to FAA alerts. The FAA is now implementing ground stops for flights to Reagan National, Dulles, BWI, Charlottesville and Richmond airports.
— Pete Muntean (@petemuntean) March 27, 2026
Should ground stops be maintained for DC-area airports during emergencies?
BREAKING: Potomac TRACON, the key radar facility handling D.C. airspace, has been evacuated to “ATC ZERO” according to FAA alerts. The FAA is now implementing ground stops for flights to Reagan National, Dulles, BWI, Charlottesville and Richmond airports.The disruption stems from an “environmental” incident at the Potomac Consolidated Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facility in Warrenton, Va., ABC 7 reported. The facility, which manages roughly 20,000 square miles of airspace, directs a large portion of the region’s flights, serving as a critical hub for travel in and out of the nation’s capital.
Officials said the evacuation prompted the immediate switch to “ATC ZERO,” effectively halting operations at the radar center, according to CNN Correspondent covering aviation and transportation Pete Muntean. Potomac TRACON is responsible for coordinating complex arrivals and departures in the D.C. corridor, and the temporary shutdown underscores the vulnerability of the airspace system to unexpected incidents.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Adam Moreira (AEMoreira042281), CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons)
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