How Philadelphia is being impacted by nationwide ground stop

It is Friday night, and the big story on Action News tonight is the latest in that major breaking story playing out across America right now. An extremely rare nationwide ground stop currently in effect. There are no planes taking off from any airport in this country tonight because a communication outage limiting the ability of pilots to speak with air traffic control. There was no indication as of yet that this was a nefarious attack against us. It was just a telecommunication outage as of right now. Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen there minutes ago on the beginning of what will be an urgent investigation into what caused this just the third time since 9-11 that the FAA has taken this drastic a step. For the moment, the priority is getting planes that are in the air back onto the ground. In the meantime, that's going to require a lot of patience from passengers across this country tonight, including here in Philadelphia. Action News reporter Brianna Smith live now at PHL. Brianna, it's been hours now since any flights took off. This could last a long time. Yeah, Brian, and people are preparing for that. It's like a ghost town here at PHL for a Friday night. People trying to get away for the weekend, fly back home, but they can't because of this ground stoppage. And now they're trying to figure out their plan B. Now, when we first arrived here around 5, this TSA line was wrapped around, and now you can see there are only a few people here trickling in. We've also seen many of the gates closed. Only two lanes are open at this time because as people are learning about this ground stoppage, they're trying to figure out what they're doing next. Now, a lot of the passengers we spoke to, you know, they're saying pretty positive considering the situation, and they say that's because they just want to make sure that everyone is safe and sound. That's what matters most here, the safety. And so we spoke to a lot of passengers, take a listen to what they had to say. I live very close. It's only about a 40 minute drive from here. So I'm not too heavily affected. You know, people that are working or, you know, they're kind of stranded here. I'm expecting this not to change for a couple days. It's the weekend. So it's, I mean, there's not a big hurry to get back. But at the same time, it's kind of like, I'm almost tempted to just go rent a car. I'm sure they're doing what's best and trying to get the systems back online and it'll just be a huge mess to unravel and hopefully everybody can get where they're going at some point tonight. Yeah, we actually broke the news to one traveler and she had just found out she was about to, she was trying to go through the security line to get to her flight and then we told her the news and she was just dumbfounded. She couldn't believe it, but she said, again, she's another one who said safety first. And she wants to make sure that everything is corrected, you know, before things continue here. Now, we spoke to a lot of people. Some people are going to rent a car to travel home. We spoke to our friend Jim. His home is 13 hours from here, so it's a long car ride. But, again, people need to get home. A lot of people are also looking into booking a hotel room for the night and then waiting to see what happens. And hopefully we'll get some more news so that people can plan what they're going to do next, Brian. I'm quite certain there's a run on the rental car counter right now. Brianna, a question for you. It's obvious in the live picture behind you that security is still open. They're still processing people through security tonight. But is the airport taking any steps to tell people, hey, proactively, you know what, go home for the night? Or are they just saying, hey, come on in and wait this out? Well, Brian, that's a good question. So I reached out to the airport, still waiting to hear back from them. But yeah, we want to learn that information, right, so that we can put that out to passengers so they know, don't bother coming to the airport tonight if you're unable to catch your flight, but still waiting to hear back from the airport. And once we do, as always, we will bring those developments to you. If I might, just one more question for you, because on a typical Friday night, Brianna, that airport, that security line behind you would be wrapped around all the way. Obviously, that's not the case tonight. Is it your sense that people are staying home because they've heard this or they're getting there, getting in line and giving up? I mean, I think it's a mix of both. I think people are arriving here and then learning what's really going on and seeing that they're. flights were delayed not once but twice and giving up and saying, all right, you know, I'm just going to call it for the night, head back home if they're close and then see what happens tomorrow. But then also some people may have heard this on their way here and thought, let me turn around. I can't catch my flight. So it's a mix of both people arriving to the airport, learning the news and trying to figure out what's next for them. And then it's other people who are probably learning this and saying, hey, I can't catch the flight anyway. Let me stay Stay home and figure out what I can do this weekend or come next week. We can catch a flight then. Okay. It's going to be a patience required situation, Brianna. Thanks so much. I want to take a live look now at something really fascinating. This is every single plane currently in the air over the United States tonight. There are hundreds that air traffic controllers are right now working to get on the ground. And what we don't know, the critical question here, is if and how those controllers have any ability to communicate with those pilots, and we're told this specifically affects flights Over the altitude of 18,000 feet. Action News reporter Elizabeth Worthington also there at PHL tonight. Elizabeth, what more can you tell us about that aspect of this? Yeah, well, Brian, so like you said, this is impacting flights that are already in the air, but flights are able to land. So I want to show you a look at the arrivals board right now. You can see that flights are coming in, but it looks like they're either delayed. Some actually were landing a little bit early. The times basically are just very fluid right now because they're just trying to get all of these flights safely on the ground. But we have talked to a few people who were in the air when they got word of this. They heard from their pilot. There's some sort of technical issue. There's a communication issue. But don't worry, we're going to get you on the ground safely. That must have been pretty nerve-wracking to hear while you're in the sky. But people we talked to said that, you know, their pilots handled it well. And they didn't realize, you know, how big of an issue, how massive of a scale this really was until they landed. And they got out of the plane and they saw people glued to their phones trying to figure out what was going on. And that's when they realized, okay, this is a much bigger issue. And then once they got, you know, Wi-Fi back on their phones and saw the news. People realize that this is a massive, massive problem. So we also, like Brianna has said, that we're seeing a lot of people who are giving up. We are definitely seeing that down here. People are coming down to the arrival section going to get a rental car to get to their destination or they're just going to the parking lot and heading home. We heard from a group of guys who were, they're going to Nashville for a bachelor party, so they're not going to give up on that too quick. They were renting a car to get to their destination. They were, uh... That's probably their best bet because I don't think their flight was going to get out. I think their flight was for like 6 o'clock or something. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, we're seeing a lot of people coming down here who are getting off of their flight and they are probably feeling pretty lucky right now that they were not impacted by this. But I imagine if you were in the air when you heard that there was some sort of issue or you did have Wi-Fi in the flight and you saw a news story about this, you'd be probably a little bit worried. So I'm glad that people didn't panic on the planes from what we've heard so far. And everyone was able to get down on the ground safely. And we are still seeing flights landing here at PHL. People are coming into the baggage claim as we speak. But we're also seeing a lot of people who are not happy walking out of here, who are not feeling pretty lucky because their flight's not taking off anytime soon. Brian? Yeah, Nashville or bus for the bachelor party crowd. They're going to get there no matter how they can. Curious about that baggage claim behind you. We see people taking their bags. Are those flights that have arrived? And people are getting their bags. Those people whose bags were put onto a departing flight, and they're now being offloaded. I believe these are flights that have arrived, but we can go check. Do you want to spin around this way? Let's see if these are for flights that have arrived or people that are giving up. Is this for a flight that arrived? Did you guys land? No, you guys are not taking off? Could you come over here and talk with us right now? We are live on the air right now on Channel 6. Could you tell me what... So your flight just got canceled. So we were to fly out yesterday and it got delayed due to the rain. We got a flat tire on 95 on the way yesterday. Then we kept getting delayed, delayed. We rebooked at like midnight last night. Came today and we were ready to board. A couple people were getting on. And then they announced this outage. We didn't quite know what it was. And everybody's sitting up there just like waiting. And then you're starting to look at the news and everything, knowing, okay, nobody's getting anywhere. And they did say international flights are gonna be the first ones to take off. So we were only going to Nashville. Didn't make it. Now you're just getting your bags and just going home. And everybody's gonna go home. What are we gonna do? Stay for another, you know, hours and hours? I know, so sad, but. Have you heard anything from your airline? They're going to rebook you or refund you. They really are great. They're all saying, they're almost wanting you to cancel your flight. We'll refund you everything. So we called the hotels. They're like, absolutely. We know what's going on. Cancel the reservations. No problem. So hopefully it'll go smooth. But there's a lot of people up there about to come down. I'm sure. All right. Thank you for the heads up. Safe travels. Brian, I think they're telling me to send it back to you in the studio right now. Yeah, well, that woman wins the prize for grace under pressure. My goodness, she's been through a lot. So props to her. Elizabeth, thanks. We'll check back in with you here tonight. I want to get to the phone now. We're joined by Arthur Walk, an aviation expert based here in Philadelphia. We look live at the situation now in Chicago tonight. Another spot where no planes are moving. Arthur, thanks for joining me here on the phone tonight. Or actually, you're live. I didn't realize that. Thanks for joining us. Sure. Hey, let's start with the sort of unprecedented nature of this thing. We've said this is only the third time since 9-11 that this has happened, and the other two times were obviously 9-11, and then the time after that was a different kind of system outage. When we say unprecedented, Arthur, just what are we talking about here? It's unprecedented in that... I've been flying for 53 years. I've never experienced a communications outage that was as widespread as this one and confined to altitudes above 18,000 feet where most jet airplanes fly. Forgive me, but I'm waiting for my microphone there. Here's the thing I think everybody watching is curious about tonight. We've learned that this is an issue that relates specifically to communications over 18,000 feet. So there's a fear, for those of us who don't know anything about this, that the people who are flying up there tonight are, in essence, flying blind. The inability to communicate with anybody. Is that your understanding, or are there workarounds up there? Yes, there are workarounds. First, when a pilot gets a clearance, even if he loses communications, the protocol is to continue the flight on the route that was assigned and then begin a descent at the time of his expected arrival. So that's what everybody, all the pilots and all the controllers expect to happen. Secondly, there's something called CPDLC, and it's a text message methodology that's just been introduced maybe three or four years ago, where the controllers can communicate via text message in the cockpit, and the pilot can respond to that from the cockpit. So that's a good workaround. And lastly, there are, of course, other frequencies that are below the normal frequencies above 18,000, approach controls, departure controls that pilots can talk to. And finally, there's what's called ACARS, which is the ability of the pilot to communicate with the company and to relay information that way. So just as a plane has at least two engines, there are backup upon backup upon backup with the communication. That's a good thing. I guess the other question would be when this first plays out. Is there any sense that pilots would panic and assume first and foremost that something is wrong with their plane and not the system on the ground? We pilots don't panic. We pilots are trained to accomplish the mission regardless of the impediments. And the lack of communication, while it's inconvenient and it goes under the category of who needs this aggravation, it's not going to cause a safety issue. So I'm also curious about the process by which this decision is made, right? At some point today, it became apparent to the FAA and the powers that be that, hey, this is not just like a localized problem. This is affecting the entire country. But to take this drastic step to shut down all air traffic across this country is one that they don't take lightly, I'm sure. So how, Arthur, is that decision made? And what's the infrastructure or the network by which that decision is instantaneously relayed across the country? Well, first, somebody had to be informed that there were outages in communications above 18,000 feet. Once that information was provided, somebody made the decision, probably the FAA administrator, to shut down the system. Now you've got airplanes on the ground all over the country. The biggest problem we're going to have now is where do you put the airplanes when they arrive, because there's not going to be any place to put them. That's an inconvenience problem, but not a safety problem. But once that decision was made, which was a major decision, was an attempt to avoid saturating or oversaturating what was left to work. And apparently, they decided that it was best to keep the airplanes on the ground and then recover all the airplanes in the air. That's what they're doing. Arthur, I was listening to that news conference from Mark Wayne Mullen, the Homeland Security Secretary, before I came out here to the studio, and it became very clear that they do not know what caused this yet. They are not ruling out even the possibility of some kind of nefarious action which could have disrupted. The communication network across the country, while they begin the process of figuring that out, I think the more pressing and immediate question for passengers who have flight plans this weekend is what is this likely to look like over the next three, four, five days? Is this going to be a prolonged? I think they'll find the answer as to why this occurred very quickly. The problem is you have to get all these airplanes in the wrong places, right? Airplanes have not made their trips. They're not in one location that they should be to pick up passengers or to meet connecting flights. So I would say that the system, in order to recover, is going to take at least two days. Okay, Arthur Wolff, we certainly appreciate your expertise, your input here tonight. Thanks so much for joining us. We greatly appreciate it. We may turn to you as this thing plays out, however it plays out. Appreciate that so much. Arthur Wolff, aviation expert based here in the Philadelphia region. Thanks so much. Let's get to the satellite center here tonight. We've got my colleague, Gray Hall, who, of course, was just out here spearheading Action News at 5. Doug, a bit deeper into this, Ray, what more have you found in the last few minutes here? Well, Brian, we can tell you there are several new developments coming into the newsroom at this hour. And here's what we're learning at this point. According to flight radar, there were 3,100 planes bound for U.S. airports in the air when that ground stop was issued that interrupted so many people's plans today. Flights that are currently in the air are being diverted, we're learning, to other airports. And according to the FAA, this is not a cyber attack. But the agency working to figure out what is the root cause of this issue and happening not too long ago outside the White House, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen said there is, quote, no indication yet that the ongoing ground stop is a threat. Instead, it is being called a telecommunication issue. We were wanting to assure all the American people. This isn't a safety to the American people or another 9-11. I think that's what a lot of people are trying to make the comparison to, and that's not the case. This is unprecedented when you see something like this, and we're going to continue to throw the assets we need at it to make sure that, not to repeat myself, but that we get the flights down and then we get the normal operations back up. And that is the hope tonight that things return to normal eventually, that normal, not sure how long that's going to take. According to Mullen, it is just too early to tell if this will last days or perhaps weeks. Mullen went on to add that the FAA ground stop and Microsoft outage Are separate issues. So keep that in mind. Brian, you alluded to this when you were talking to that flight expert. The other nationwide ground stop since 9-11 was in January of 2023 when a key FAA computer system malfunctioned. So no doubt, Brian, this will be an issue at least for days to come. We certainly hope it gets resolved quickly. Great. Thank you so much.