Control tower at McCarran airport remains closed for third day

The air traffic control tower at McCarran International Airport remained closed Saturday, three days after a controller tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

McCarran has remained open since the Federal Aviation Administration shut down the tower late Wednesday night, with flight operations being handled by the Las Vegas Terminal Radar Approach Control, operating as the control tower’s back up.

The airport is operating 10 flights per hour, down from the normal rate of 30 to 56 aircraft per hour, leading to hundreds of flights being canceled and delays for arriving flights averaging 4 hours and 47 minutes Saturday morning, according to the FAA.

Southwest Airlines, McCarran’s largest carrier by passenger volume, saw over 100 canceled flights Saturday, according to Ro Hawthorne, Southwest spokeswoman. There have been about 400 canceled flights over the last three days for Southwest.

The FAA closed the Las Vegas Terminal Radar Approach Control between midnight and 5 a.m. Saturday to allow crews to perform precautionary cleaning of the facility. The action was taken out of an abundance of caution and not because of any known medical issue involving TRACON personnel, the FAA said.

The FAA said there is still no timetable for when the tower will reopen and operations at McCarran would be back to normal.

Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on Twitter.