DALLAS — A fire at a fuel pump at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport led to a ground stop for inbound flights Friday morning.
The airport's air traffic control command center posted an update shortly before 11 a.m. about the ground stop, saying a fuel system was "currently offline and being inspected due to prior fire."
The fire happened sometime Friday morning "at one of the fuel pumps at DFW Airport," the airport tweeted.
"Our DPS team responded immediately and were able to put the fire out and shut off the affected pump," the airport tweeted. "Currently, we are performing safety inspection to ensure it is safe to return fuel service."
Around 12:40 p.m., the airport tweeted that the airlines' fuel contractor had "restored operations at their facility" and they were sending fuel to aircraft.
"It will take some time to get fueling operations back to normal," the airport tweeted.
No timetable was given on when things would get back to normal.
The ground stop was causing heavy delays into and out of the airport.
Heide Loya was one of the passengers dealing with these delays. She flew into DFW from Florida and was on her way back home to California. She said while she initially was supposed to take off for California at 10 a.m., it got delayed multiple times and she ended up having a departure time of 7:20 p.m.
"I've got a little puppy at home right now," Loya said. "My husband just left to go to the races so the dog is home alone. You know, it's an inconvenience. But I just don't sweat the small stuff anymore."
Xavier McCoy had a different experience Friday. Visiting from Washington, he said he initially had his own delays at his own airport due to staffing issues.
However, once his flight landed at DFW, he said the airplane just stayed on the tarmac and wasn't going to his gate.
"The previous flight got delayed because that flight hadn't gotten off yet," McCoy said. "We had no terminal to go to. It was definitely weird. You don't expect to have that happen while you're actively landing."
It took about an hour for McCoy's issue to be resolved, which was similar to Dena Noubleau's situation. She was on a different flight and also got stuck on the tarmac Friday. She also said once her plane finally got to the gate, then there was no one there to take them off the plane.
"The pilot said we were sitting there due to lightning and something with fuel," Noubleau said. "The other plane couldn't get out so we had to wait to get in. You could tell some people were getting restless."
As of 4:30 p.m. Friday, American Airlines was showing 770 total delays and 86 cancellations at DFW, according to Flight Aware.
Flight Aware was reporting that all inbound flights were being held and that departure delays were at least 40 minutes, and increasing, though it was unclear how long the ground stop would last.