Date: 201208
Local time of day: 0001-0600
Location: DFW.Airport, TX
Aircraft: No Aircraft
Reporter organization: Government
Reporter function: Approach; Departure
Reporter qualification: Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Human factors: Other / Unknown
Second reporter function: Departure; Approach
Anomaly: ATC Issue All Types
Detector: Person Air Traffic Control
Result: Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance
Contributing factors: ATC Equipment / Nav Facility / Buildings
Primary problem: ATC Equipment / Nav Facility / Buildings

Narrative: The Voice Switching System (RDVS) at DFW failed. The first indications were the failure of DR1; MN and FE frequencies. Controllers stopped departures at both DFW Towers. Many frequencies continued to operate normally for a few minutes. All of the RDVS equipment frequencies and land lines ultimately failed and controllers moved to the emergency jacks. The TMU stopped all arrivals into and out of the DFW terminal airspace. All controllers plugged into emergency jacks and with no land line capability; one arrival from each corner post and one departure from each Tower were allowed into the airspace. A TMC was assigned the responsibility to run between positions with any coordination necessary and was to coordinate necessary information with adjacent facilities via the commercial telephone. Tech Ops advised that they could reset the RDVS but it would take 20 minutes. The decision was made to go to ATC Zero until the reset occurred. It appeared the reset was working and TMU took us out of ATC Zero and returned us to an ATC Alert status. DFW departures were resumed with 15 miles in trail while controllers communicated from the emergency jacks. The system appeared to have reset and arrivals were resumed 20 miles in trail. Arrivals and departures were resumed with normal spacing. DFW Tower reported 76 departure delays. DAL reported 8 departure delays. There were an unknown number of arrival delays. Some satellite airports held aircraft on the ramp and didn't even taxi them out. The D10/DFW Tower RDVS system needs to be replaced. The talk among the technicians was that 'cards' were replaced a few days before and if they are not done with a certain time frame in between; then the system goes into failure. This is evidently a glitch or an old problem that they have been 'worked around' for years. The problem with controllers switching to the emergency radios is two fold: 1. most positions are worked with at least one other position combined to it and aircraft are on multiple frequencies. Each position on has two emergency radios for the primary frequency; a Red Jack and an Orange Jack. The logistics of having to unplug and run down to another position to transmit into that emergency radio to switch aircraft to the other frequency is dangerous and unacceptable. 2. The lighting in the TRACON is very spotty with a few bright lights in places surrounded by extreme dark in others. The lighting is so poor near the RADAR scopes that is takes extremely good eyesight to determine if you are plugging into a Red Emergency Jack which has very limited transmission distance; verses an Orange Emergency Jack which has better transmission distance. In either case using the emergency jacks allows the controller no access to land line or interphone communication.


Second narrative: [Narrative #2 contained no additional information.]


Synopsis: D10 Controller described a complete RDVS failure that eliminated all inter/intra-landline connectivity and required the use of emergency equipment. The reporter noted that the RDVS equipment needs to be replaced ASAP.