Passengers face hours-long delays across DC-area airports after equipment malfunction at air traffic control center

By Alexandra Skores, CNN

(CNN) — Passengers at three airports in the Washington, DC, area are facing significant delays after a ground stop was issued Friday afternoon due to an equipment outage, according to the FAA and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who posted details on X.

The disruptions were caused by the temporary closure of a crucial air traffic control center in Virginia Friday afternoon after FAA employees reported a strong chemical smell in the building, Duffy said.

Emergency responders and a HAZMAT team responded to the facility. The smell was traced to a circuit board that had overheated and was subsequently replaced, Duffy said in an update.

More than 30 FAA employees were evaluated and returned to work after the scene was deemed safe, according to the Fauquier County Fire Rescue System in Warrenton, Virginia, which responded to the incident.

The Potomac TRACON in Warrenton provides air traffic control services to the Baltimore-Washington and the Richmond-Charlottesville areas. The TRACON controls the airspace over Andrews, BWI, Ronald Reagan, Dulles, Richmond and many other airports.

Ground stops were also issued at Richmond International Airport, Charlottesville Albemarle Airport and Manassas Regional Airport, adding to the growing list of delays affecting travelers.

Passengers at Washington Reagan National Airport were huddled at gates Friday evening as they awaited their flights, with several sprawled out on the floor. While the ground stop has since been lifted, delays at Baltimore reached over two and a half hours, three hours at Dulles and more than three and a half hours at Reagan, according to the FAA, as the airports worked to recover from the stop, which lasted about three hours.

Delays are slowly decreasing, according to the tracking website FlightAware.com, with delays averaging about 90 minutes at Reagan and Dulles and 60 minutes at Baltimore as of 10:45 p.m. ET Friday.

Flight cancellations have begun to tick upward and will likely increase throughout the evening as flight crews reach working hour limitations.

Reagan leads the cancellations, with 136 flights canceled and more than 300 delayed coming in and out of the airport Friday, according to FlightAware.com. More than 40 cancellations and over 200 delays have been recorded in and out of both Dulles and Baltimore as of 8 p.m. ET, the tracking website said.

CNN Special Correspondent Jamie Gangel is one of the many passengers stuck at an airport.

Gangel said her flight back to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport has been delayed at least four times this evening, and some of her fellow passengers are worried about missing connecting flights.

People are getting most of their information about what’s going on from their phones, Gangel said, as airline officials at the airport are simply telling passengers there is an air traffic control issue.

Another stuck passenger, Kristen Rodrigues, was supposed to take off for Chicago early Friday afternoon from Reagan Airport. But instead of enjoying the Windy City, she and her fellow flyers were on the tarmac in Virginia for about three hours before being taken back to the terminal.

“Two hours go by, we’re still on the runway – no updates – and I could see that the pilots are pretty frustrated,” Rodrigues told CNN.

Rodrigues said throughout the day, she only received two updates from her airline. She was communicating with the airline Friday evening to try to rebook on a different flight.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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CNN’s Alaa Elassar, Elizabeth Wolfe and Nic F. Anderson contributed to this report.