FAA suspends all U.S. departures indefinitely

Back to that breaking news we have been following. The FAA has issued a nationwide ground stop for all U.S. airports. Fox 5's Christopher King is at Hartsfield Jackson International tonight. Christopher, you just spoke to the APD chief, Darren Sheerbaum. What did he have to say? Well, Russ Courtney, what he said was that right now there aren't any real issues as far as public safety is concerned. He says they're putting extra officers out here. We'll get to that in a moment, but right now I want to show you this. Let's take a look down here. What this ground stop means is, take a look at this. It means all these passengers you see right here, they're all waiting to take off. They're checking in, but... I guess they're being told that they can't go anywhere. That's because of that nationwide ground stop. They're going to be here for a while. How long? We don't know. They don't know. The airlines don't know. Now, let's walk back over here, if we can, and show you this departure board. Okay? The departure... Pardon me, ma'am, if we could. Excuse me. The departure board is all lit up. All kinds of delays up here. Up here... Up and down the board, not sure when those flights are going to be taking off. So why is that? FAA says this is due to a communications issue that affects all air traffic control centers all around the country. Now, this, of course, could take, who knows how long this could take. I'm not even going to speculate because that's not what I'm here to do. But what we will do is we will go to some sound we got with Chief Darren Shearbaum from Atlanta Police, and here's what he has to say. We are shifting extra officers here out of precaution. The mayor is wanting to ensure we have sufficient resources here to help those along as they prepare for the flights to resume. So have you seen any problems with public safety at all? We do not. No, we do not. You're going to see extra officers because we want to be present. We want to be able to give directions. We want to be able to reassure travelers until normalcy returns. How long will the extra officers be out here? As long as they're needed. We do have a plan to keep additional officers here as long as the disruption will be in place. We are working closely with the neighboring jurisdictions such as East Point, Hapeville, College Park, and the Georgia State Patrol making sure we have extra patrols on the ramps coming into the airport. And how long do you think you will be out here? We're here making sure we have... everything in place. We're keeping our mayor apprised of the situation and all the information that he needs. Again, that was APD Atlanta Police Chief Darren Shearbaum saying no major issues as far as public safety is concerned. Again, he says they're putting more officers out here. They'll be out here as long as they need to be out here. Back out here live again at the check-in area. This is at the JetBlue United and can't see what the other airlines are over there, but these passengers you see right here. They're waiting to get off the ground. When they'll get off the ground, they don't know. Now, the folks we spoke with are making the best of it for now. That could change if this nationwide ground stop drags on for a prolonged time. It's not clear when these passengers will be able to leave. What is clear is they likely have a long wait ahead of them. FAA technicians are investigating the issue. What this means is arriving flights are permitted to land, but departures are temporarily suspended. Of course, if you're traveling, check with your airline for flight updates. Now, this is the first nationwide ground stop since 2023. We had that big meltdown for the air traffic control systems, and the last time we had a total ground stop before that was back during 9-11 in the aftermath of the terror attacks. Russ, Courtney. Please. You'd have to imagine, Christopher, that there's a little bit of a backup with people checking in, but flights aren't going out. I mean, people have already, if they've checked in, they've already left their luggage and checked that in. So even if you want to turn around and leave, what do you do? Do you leave your bags behind? I mean, have you heard that being kind of a calculation for people trying to decide what to do? That's a very good question. Not clear on that yet. We've been here right now talking to passengers, talking to the chief, of course, trying to give you updates from over here. But we'll look into that to see what is happening as far as that's concerned. But, you know, as you can imagine, since the flights aren't going out, the bags aren't going out and the passengers are not going out. Some of them are going to stay here overnight. Some are going to go back home. Some will probably try to get hotels. How successful they'll be, we'll see about that. But right now, the people I've been speaking with have largely been taking this in stride. They've had upbeat attitudes. But if this is prolonged, like we saw a few years ago, we had that big cyber meltdown, of course, people's patience will start to wear thin. Tempers may flare, but let's give it some time. We don't know what's happening right now. We're trying to work out those, trying to gather that information to see what's going on. Courtney, Russ? Yeah, that was January 10th, 2023. The notice to air missions system went down, but that was only for 90 minutes and it took the rest of the day to get things back to normal. So it seems reasonable to assume that the folks who are there at the airport tonight may very well likely not be going anywhere. Tonight, probably tomorrow. So my question, and it may be unfair to ask you at this point because you're stuck in that one part of the airport, but maybe you could investigate this if you wouldn't mind, if you don't know the answer at the moment. Are people still going through security? And I ask because, I mean, it doesn't seem to make any sense to go to Concourse C or Concourse D if there's no plane to take you anyplace. Yeah, Russ, I don't have an answer for that right now. I will look into that. When we walked in here, the area, the security area, looked unusually quiet, especially for what's usually peak rush hours on the weekend, on Fridays. It's usually jam-packed over there. It was relatively quiet over there, which was surprising. But I guess when you think of it, since no one's taking off, there's no reason for them to go through that area. But we will look into that. Yeah, well, presumably some people have heard about this and they decided to stay home, right? Rather than get involved in a situation where they don't know what's coming next and they might have to spend the night at the airport. Right, absolutely. All right, Christopher, thanks.