What is the tallest air traffic control tower in the US?

Here are the top ten tallest air traffic control towers in the United States.

Written by Daniel Glover

Passengers who fly into and out of Charlotte Douglas International Airport may have noticed a new air traffic control tower taking shape in recent years. The structure tops out at 370 feet, a full 215 feet higher than the facility that controllers there had used since 1979 to handle flights at the nation’s sixth-busiest airport.

When the new Charlotte Tower opened in February, the upgrade in height vaulted it into the No. 2 spot among the tallest in the United States.

So who’s No. 1? You’ll find the answer, along with some trivia about the tallest FAA towers, in the Top 10 list below. But first, here is the backstory of how airport traffic control towers came to be — and how some of them came to be so tall.

A brief history of airport towers

Control towers were used on battleships and industrial infrastructure like dams long before they became a feature at airports, according to Roger Connor, a curator of the aeronautics department at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. Dedicated towers weren’t needed to control air traffic until the 1920s because airfields were small. The first tower in the world was built at London’s Croydon Aerodrome in 1920. The tower was 15 feet tall.

The first radio-equipped airport tower in the United States was built into a new terminal at Cleveland Municipal Airport in 1929. This approach was common until 1941, when signs of impending war prompted the U.S. government to fund the creation of 39 airport towers and put the Civil Aeronautics Administration in charge of them except during military emergencies. By 1945, the agency operated 115 towers, including temporary facilities with a standard design.

The shift toward the taller types of towers evident at modern airports started after the war. Built into a new terminal in 1952, Phoenix Tower was the first one designed with post-war air traffic considerations and architectural aesthetics in mind, Connor said.

The federal government continued to offer funding for new towers after the war, but airport sponsors actually designed and built them. With some financial support from the airport sponsor, the FAA designed and built its first tower in 1964 at Lake Tahoe Airport. That is also about the time the agency started building more free-standing towers like those designed by famed architect I.M. Pei. In 1965, the Pei-designed Lawton Tower in Oklahoma became the first non-radar control tower with a standard design built entirely with FAA funds.

Shorter is better

Today there are more than 500 towers in the national airspace system. As new or replacement towers are built, as dozens of them will be in coming years under the new Sustainable Tower Design Initiative, an FAA established siting process is used to determine the optimum height of each tower.

Although this article is about the 10 tallest FAA towers, the goal of the siting process is actually to build towers at “the minimum height required” to ensure visibility for air traffic controllers. Specifically, they need clear views of all air traffic, runways, taxiways and controlled movement areas. Controllers also need to be able to distinguish aircraft and vehicles by type, such as single-engine planes and trucks, and to maintain ideal angles of sight in all directions and for all lighting conditions.

Towers keep getting taller because airports keep getting bigger and busier. Since the previous Charlotte Tower was completed in 1979, for example, a new runway, a new terminal, new concourses and roadways, and various facilities have been built. More changes are under way as part of the “Destination CLT” master plan. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Charlotte Douglas International Airport served a record 50.2 million passengers.

The only U.S. airport with a control tower taller than the new one at Charlotte also happens to be the busiest — Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

Here are the current top 10 tallest towers, with the heights to the tops of the air terminals:

1. Atlanta Tower: 398 feet

Completed in 2006, Atlanta Tower is 167.5 feet higher than its predecessor, which was demolished several weeks after the current tower was finished. The new tower was built in conjunction with the airport’s fifth runway. The facility also is the fifth-tallest in the world, behind rivals in Saudi Arabia (446 feet), Malaysia (two towers at 438 feet and 427 feet, respectively) and Thailand (434 feet).

2. Charlotte Tower: 370 feet

The Charlotte Airport Authority built an additional parallel runway anticipating air traffic increases, which was a result of potential economic growth and/or related to the newly constructed US Airways hub at the airport. The additional runway created a requirement for the new Charlotte Tower. Construction of the tower was completed in 2019. The tower has an 850-square-foot cab, 41,900-square-foot base building/TRACON, and a Critical Power Distribution System II Power System.

3. Las Vegas Tower: 362.8 feet

The tower at recently renamed Harry Reid International Airport soared to No. 2 on the list when it opened in 2016. Dating back to 1983, the previous tower was about 200 feet tall. The new tower’s cab was built without support beams between window panes, a design feature that improved the view of the airfield. The unique two-level cab design has space for ground controllers on the lower deck and local controllers above them.

4. Indianapolis Tower: 349.5 feet

The tower at Indianapolis International Airport is one of two in this top 10 that replaced FAA towers designed by Pei. At 140 feet tall, the Pei tower was used from 1972 until 2006, when it was demolished to give controllers a better view from today’s tower. Two towers preceded the Pei design in Indianapolis. They were built atop airport terminals in 1931 and 1956. Indianapolis was the first U.S. civilian airport to get a radar-equipped tower in 1946.

5. Orlando Tower: 345 feet

Controllers at Orlando Tower gained an extra 126 feet in perspective when their current facility opened in 2002. The new tower replaced both an FAA tower, which was demolished, and a U.S. Air Force control tower at what had been McCoy Air Force Base until 1975. Orlando International Airport is still known by the airport code “MCO” because of its history as part of the Air Force base.

6. Memphis Tower: 336 feet

The previous 186-foot tower at Memphis International Airport opened in 1977, four years after FedEx opened and made the airport its global hub. Significant increases in the airport’s size and number of operations led to construction of the current tower in 2011. The old tower was demolished soon after the new one began operations. Controllers at Memphis’ airport initially worked traffic from a cab atop the airport terminal starting in 1938. The first freestanding, nine-story tower opened in 1963.

7. Denver Tower: 333 feet

Denver didn’t just get a new control tower in 1995 — it gained a whole new airport, the first major metropolitan U.S. airport built in 20 years. The new Denver Tower was the tallest in the U.S. when it opened. The Mile-High City’s air traffic previously flowed through Stapleton International Airport all the way back to 1929. The first tower there was built in 1941, followed by upgrades in 1953 and 1967.

8. Miami Tower: 332 feet

Opened in 2002, the current tower at Miami International Airport is the 10th in a string of air traffic facilities that dates back to 1941. The first tower initially served as a judging stand and timing tower for the “All American Air Maneuvers” and was kept in place because of increasing air traffic. The current tower was built 90 yards from one that had been used since 1985. The previous tower was dismantled piece by piece in 60 sections of 19 tons each in 2006.

9. Houston Tower: 328 feet

Controllers started operations from the current tower in 1997, the same year Houston renamed the airport after former President George H.W. Bush. However, the previous tower, which at 170 feet was the first and the tallest of the FAA’s I.M. Pei-designed towers, still stands. Opened in 1969, it is being considered for designation as a historic landmark. The Pei tower was used for an interactive art exhibit in 2018.

10. Cleveland Tower: 324 feet

After the current Cleveland Tower opened in 2015, the FAA hosted international delegations to showcase the facility, one of several towers that have served the airport beginning with the Cleveland Tank Plant in 1925. The airport’s previous tower, and its first with a modern design, had been in operation since 1987. Cleveland has a storied aviation history as the home of the first U.S. municipal airfield, first control tower, and first airfield lighting system.

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