The air traffic control tower was shut down and 118 flights to and from the airport were suspended. Some coming flights were diverted to Dulles International Airport.
After a few hours, the airport began reopening but two runways remained closed. The control tower remained out of commission, according to the Aviation authorities. The surveillance of the air traffic around the Baltimore and Washington, D.C. region was temporarily transferred to the Potomac Terminal Radar Approach.
The accident in the traffic control tower of the Baltimore-Washington Airport is without precedent in the industry for many dozen of years. John Dunkerly, president of BWI’s chapter of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association said: “We didn’t have any idea why it happened. Usually, the towers are pretty safe during these storms.”
Thousands of people were on BWI Airport when the accident occurred. They were forced to change their flight plans.
