FAA lifts ground stop for U.S. flights

We want to begin with a news alert that so many of you are following with us. The FAA just lifted a nationwide ground stop. Flights across the country were grounded for nearly four hours, causing major disruptions at airports. The Department of Homeland Security says the introduction of new technology into an old air traffic control system. overwhelmed it and they they can't say that this won't happen again. Let's get out to our FOX 13's Blake Devine. He's been at the airport there all afternoon and joins us live at Tampa International. So Blake, is it fair to say that things are starting to get back to normal there? Allie, it's been a far from normal day, but it's also been a very long day for travelers at Tampa International Airport. Right now we are starting to see some glimmers of hope on the board. Green means go. We are getting some departed flights, but take a look at all of that red canceled flights. It's been the story of the day here. Now here's what we know. This nationwide ground stop went into effect. Just before four o'clock this afternoon lasting over four hours before the FAA lifted it around 815 this evening. Throughout that time, travelers at TPA faced hours of delays, cancellations and confusion. Our cameras captured airport police blocking travelers. From boarding trams to overcrowded airsides, according to Flight Aware, Tampa International has had 159 delays and 94 cancellations today alone. The FAA says communication problems impacted air traffic control centers, which prompted this ground stop for safety reasons. And for plenty of people, canceled flights forced them to head home or back to their hotels. Lots of long lines and people at the desk kind of telling you that, hey, we don't know anything, and just check your apps and call. Why did you decide you're just going to leave at this point? The flight got canceled, so just moving on to tomorrow. We know that flights aren't getting out tonight, so instead of reliving it, we're just going to go home, enjoy the weekend, and we'll get tickets for another weekend. And right now, flights slowly resuming, although major airlines still have a huge backlog to clear, meaning Saturday morning could be quite busy here at TPA. Keep in mind, this was only the second ground stop nationwide since the September 11th attacks. Ali. Wow. Yeah, it was pretty startling to see all of this happen today. So Blake, how is TPA handling all these planes? Absolutely. So they actually had to help out some of our neighboring airports here in Florida. A lot of international flights were diverted here to TPA Orlando. They filled up quite quickly. So here at TPA, they made some available gates for those international flights. They also were considering at some point in time closing an entire runway to allow these planes to park. While this was all going on today, so they were getting very creative amongst the nationwide craziness. Wow. And to think that they're not sure this won't happen again because of the old system trying to work with the new system. All right. Blake Devine live for us tonight. Blake, thank you.