Second TRACON Evacuation in Two Weeks Grounds BWI Flights, Causes Delays

For the second time in 14 days, an overheated piece of equipment inside a federal air traffic control facility in Warrenton, Virginia forced a regional ground stop that grounded flights at BWI-Marshall and four other airports Friday evening, sending hundreds of travelers into hours of cascading delays.

The Potomac Consolidated Terminal Radar Approach Control facility was declared "ATC Zero" at approximately 6:40 p.m. EDT on March 27 after personnel reported a strong smell inside the building at 3699 Macintosh Drive. Fauquier County Fire Rescue identified the source as an overheated uninterruptible power supply battery backup housed in an IT cabinet in a first-floor breakroom. The FAA issued an immediate ground stop affecting BWI, Reagan National, Dulles International, Richmond International, and Charlottesville Albemarle Airport. No injuries were reported.

The FAA lifted the ground stop approximately 90 minutes later, around 8:10 p.m. EDT, but travelers at BWI faced cascading delays well into the night. When a TRACON goes offline, air traffic sequencing must be rebuilt in stages, meaning backlogs routinely outlast the formal ground stop by significant margins. A Dulles tower controller, heard over radio as the stoppage began, told waiting aircraft plainly: "Potomac TRACON has had to evacuate due to some type of odor. So it's going to be a while. They stopped us down on all departures." CNN aviation correspondent Pete Muntean was among the first journalists to report the "ATC Zero" declaration on social media.

The March 27 shutdown mirrored an incident just two weeks prior. On March 13, the same Potomac TRACON was evacuated after a contractor working on faulty equipment triggered an odor from an overheating circuit board inside the facility, also producing regional ground stops at the same airports.

Back-to-back equipment failures at the same facility have drawn scrutiny toward the state of FAA infrastructure. The Potomac TRACON opened on December 15, 2002, consolidating five prior facilities, and now manages a 23,000-square-mile stretch of terminal airspace covering parts of Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. It is the fourth-largest TRACON in the United States, logging 1,400,659 aircraft operations in 2024.

The repeat incidents come against a backdrop of mounting concern over FAA staffing. As of early 2026, the agency had approximately 10,800 fully certified air traffic controllers on active duty against a target of roughly 13,800, a shortfall of about 3,000 positions. In February 2025, roughly 400 FAA technical and support employees were cut under Department of Government Efficiency workforce reductions. FAA Administrator Sean Duffy confirmed those layoffs did not include certified controllers, but critics have argued the loss of technical support staff places additional strain on aging facility operations. The Potomac TRACON incidents were also not isolated to this corridor: a burning smell triggered a brief ground stop at Newark Liberty International Airport just four days earlier, on March 23.

For BWI travelers already contending with security line backups earlier that Friday, the 90-minute formal ground stop and subsequent hours of rescheduled departures made for a punishing end to the week. With two equipment failures at the same facility in 14 days, one tied to a contractor working on faulty hardware and one to a failing power backup system, the Potomac TRACON's infrastructure is drawing the kind of attention that a fire crew's quick response alone is unlikely to quiet.