Nashville Airport air traffic control tower to go dark as government shutdown drags on

Nashville International Airport’s air traffic control tower will go dark Tuesday night amid staff shortages during the government shutdown – the second tower to shut down this week as the nationwide crisis grounds thousands of flights.

The tower at the beloved Tennessee hub will shutter at 7 p.m. until midnight, CNN reported.

Pilots wanting to fly into the airport must contact the regional air traffic control center in Memphis to get clearance before entering the airspace, the outlet reported.

Tuesday’s staffing crisis comes one day after the control tower at California’s Hollywood Airport was forced to shut down for several hours Monday night due to a lock of air traffic controllers – a major problem California Gov. Gavin Newsom blamed on President Trump.

The shutdown, which began on Oct. 1, has left scores of unpaid air traffic controllers and airport staffers calling out sick – crippling more than a dozen major travel hubs from New Jersey and Chicago to Texas and California, according to the Federal Aviation Administration and flight data.

As of Tuesday afternoon, 2,152 flights were delayed in the country – including domestic and international arrivals and departures – and 58 were canceled, according to FlightAware.

There were more than 6,140 delays reported on Monday, including 42% of flights leaving from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport and 23% from California’s Hollywood Burbank Airport, data showed. Nearly 90 canceled flights were also reported.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy flagged a spike in sick calls and warned the shutdown will further strain air traffic controllers, who are deemed essential workers that are expected to show up despite not being paid.