Overview

• Officials traced Friday’s disruption at the Dallas TRACON to accidental fiber cuts in Argyle that disabled both primary and backup links.
• The FAA cited “multiple failures” by Frontier Communications and said contractor L3Harris did not ensure required redundancies functioned.
• Frontier said another carrier’s third-party crew cut its lines, while L3Harris pointed to long-running underinvestment in aging circuits.
• L3Harris reported 99.999% historical network uptime and said it plans to replace legacy TDM telecom nationwide by the end of 2027.
• Departures were sharply curtailed—American Airlines released nine flights from 3 to 6 p.m. versus a normal rate near 100 per hour—as the FAA used conservative traffic management with no reported safety incidents, renewing calls for upgrades backed by new funding and GAO warnings.