DMV flight delays continue after FAA ground stop; D.C. United fires coach René Weiler

Right now at six, airlines shuffle to get passengers to their destinations after that rare and massive nationwide ground stop where everything stands tonight and where the Trump administration is now pointing fingers. Plus, D.C. United fires its head coach where the team is looking to go next after a disappointing end to the season. And a massive lawsuit just filed after a tanker crash on the Mississippi River. What the Port of New Orleans is now seeking Speaking amid that investigation, Fox 5 News at 6 starts right now. But first tonight, fallout after that nationwide ground stop. The FAA says while operations are back to normal, the U.S. air travel schedule may not fully recover until the end of tomorrow. Across the country and right here in our region, passengers, they are still dealing with delays, cancellations, and misconnections. Our Regina Ureta is live at Reagan National Airport right now. Regina, what are folks saying today? Yeah, well, Sydney, we're here in Terminal 2 at Reagan National. At first glance, just kind of right behind me, it doesn't seem that chaotic like yesterday, but we're still seeing travelers and some who have told me that they're dealing with the ripple effects from yesterday's national ground stop that halted thousands of planes across the country. Now, you can see here, this is the bag services here in American Airlines. There are some travelers here waiting to see some in this line who have been delayed, some who have been canceled. So again, still dealing with some of the impacts and just if you can kind of make it out, there are some cancellations. That's in the orange Bangor, which is in Maine. There was actually a flight heading towards there at 8 p.m. It got canceled. Also delays here on this board. Now, I can kind of tell you that some of the delays, it's about one to two hours. Nothing compared to yesterday where people were scrambling, trying to figure out when their flight was going to. to head out to their destination. But again, I mean, definitely frustrating for travelers. One of the biggest questions that I'm actually getting is whether some of these airlines are going to provide some sort of credit or a refund. We've been talking to some of the passengers as well who have said, you know, that again, some of their flights got delayed. Ebony, I talked to you. Do you mind if we just ask you a quick question? You were heading towards Dallas. Your flight got delayed and you were getting an update seeing, actually got canceled. Were you able to get another ticket today? So what's going to happen? What are you guys going to do? I'm currently looking at flights right now. Hopefully we can get home tonight. All right. I know. And you, you found out just hours ago or you came to the airport. How did you find out? Found out hours ago with the flight notification. So what are the next plans right now? I know we're trying to figure that out right now. Best of luck. Hopefully you can get some sort of flight as soon as possible, something like that. Is home Dallas? Yes. I'm so sorry. Definitely still seeing some frustration there. I'm so sorry about that. Again, Sydney just kind of seen, I mean, this is just one traveler, but we're hearing from others as well who are still dealing with some of the issues. We'll try to keep you updated as we learn more from other passengers who are trying to get home tonight. We know a lot of folks are in her position. We appreciate your coverage tonight from DCA. And meanwhile, we know there are a lot of key questions that remain unanswered. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is now pushing Congress to approve $50 billion in funding to revamp the FAA. House Speaker Mike Johnson says he is already working on a plan tonight. Joining me now live is Andrew Bourne, a senior fellow with the National Security Institute. Sir, thank you so much for joining us again here on Fox 5. Great to see you. Great to be with you. So my first question for you, we talked a bit about this last night. You have the administration saying we are in dire needs of these updates to the FAA and to our technology. But this is also very safe. You shouldn't be afraid to fly. In your view, sir, how can folks understand those two things at the same time? First off, let's keep in mind that based on what we've been told, this is due to basically some equipment that was being updated, and it disrupted the way that a lot of the data was being processed. So a human being actually saw and observed some of these patterns, and it was affecting a number of the air traffic control things. Then the human beings made the judgment call to do a fail-safe meaning that it's going to stay safe. So people were not at risk. You know, there are redundant communications methods that exist during the disruption. And undoubtedly, I mean, this is the largest national ground stop in 25 years. And, you know, with five hours disrupted, it will take a few days for people to get back scheduling wise. But but, yeah, really based on everything that we are reading and that we've seen to date, human lives were not at risk. This was exactly what you want professionals. Who are overseeing a system that is complex and complicated and includes a lot of precious human lives on the line. You want them attuned and putting safety first. The administration, as you pointed out, has has suggested this is an outdated technology issue. They said there is no evidence of a cyber attack or anything of that nature. In your view, are there still questions around what happened that that folks are going to need to be answered to continue to feel safe flying going forward? Or do you feel like so far the information that they've provided is significant and that there's not a whole lot of investigation left to do? I mean, first off, I'd say it's not just one party or the other in America, and it's not just the United States. I mean, air traffic control systems worldwide in developed countries have all got components that were built at various times, some a decade ago, some a couple of decades ago. So, you know, You know, in this case, based on what Federal Aviation Administration is saying, it sounds like this was part of a planned upgrade. But these are kind of patchwork upgrades. So they're converting from copper wire to fiber optic, which will be much better for a fully digital and digitized system. What that means is it caused some disruption. Now, could that have been human error? Could that have been because the server or the switch, whatever was being installed, had an issue with it? I think that there's probably a lesson to be learned. And I think it's going to take a long time. I think there's going to be a lot of analysis. And really robust forensics to get to the root cause of what led to this. And ultimately, you know, I think it's going to come down to three principles that would apply to any major digital modernization, because air traffic control is not the only one. I mean, many systems have to be modernized. First off is that the cutover is always the dangerous part, right? It's when you're moving off of what the existing patchwork infrastructure was and putting something new into the system. So when that happens, there should always be a pre-planned, pre-rehearsed mechanism to revert or go back to the original safe system. And so my guess is that's part of the analysis that's going to be done. The next thing is to have segmentation in the system so that if there's a defect at one of these air traffic control centers regionally, it doesn't spill over and and attract or impact other ones. And then the third component, and I think this is probably where we can start to see some success and say thank you to the ground crews, aviators, air traffic controllers and professionals that made this recovery possible, is to have the ability to be resilient and recover because it could be it doesn't really matter what the cause is. It could have been a disruption in electromagnetic spectrum from the sun or an AI problem or an attack or simply just a failure of a system someplace. The point is that we need to be able to recover quickly. And I think that's where we are. I think people should feel safe. I feel safe. And I'm sure that's encouraging to folks at home to hear. Andrew Bourne, we appreciate your insight. As always, thank you for joining us. Great. Thanks for having me. All right, we want to get you now to a Fox 5 News alert. D.C. United has fired its head coach, Renee Weiler, after less than two seasons. The team experienced a disappointing season, ending with 14th place in the Eastern Conference. That is 28th out of the 30 teams in the league. The team now has eyes on potentially hiring veteran MLS coach Oscar Pareja. And out of some other top stories we're following tonight, police are looking for a suspect responsible for a deadly stabbing in Silver Spring. Officers say they found a man just before 10 last night near a bus stop on Castle Boulevard. That victim died at the scene, and tonight police have not provided any suspect description or a motive. And a man has been charged in a peeping Tom incident inside a residence hall at the University of Maryland. Campus police say a resident reported a man filming them over the curtain while they were taking a shower. Officials arrested Sunghoon Hong of Falls Church, who was accused of getting access to that building by following someone else in through the gate. Hong faces multiple charges, including peeping Tom and trespassing charges. Time now on this chilly Saturday night is 6.09 and we're going to turn to a first check on your forecast with a live look all across our region. Meteorologist Jen Delgado here now for that first check of your forecast. Jen is chilly outside. It is cold outside. The wind, I'm like, oh, I forgot what that felt like. The wind is wicked, like one of your favorite movies, right? Oh, she remembers. I do. You know, and we've had wind gusts today up to about 35 miles per hour. Now, as we go through tonight, we're going to get some clouds around. There's some chatter. Could we maybe see a flurry? I think most of us are going to remain dry, but we could see a few sprinkles as we go into the overnight up into tomorrow. So for your Sunday, it is going to be another breezy and chilly day On the way, as we see those temperatures running below average for this. This time of year, we check the airports right now. Our temperature, 49 degrees out at Reagan. Notice the camera is rocking around. And out at Dallas, 47 degrees with a feel like temperature of 41. So we look at the temps. Everybody's in the 40s except down towards the south. We're looking at you. Areas like Quantico and Fredericksburg, you're at 50 degrees. Today's high was 53 degrees. That's well shy of the average, which is 59. Now, as we look at those wind gusts today, they got up to 32. That's the reason why it felt so. Cool outside. It felt like winter. In fact, temperatures in the 50s are what you expect for high in December. It doesn't happen like this, especially this early before Thanksgiving. Now, as I mentioned to you earlier, could we see a sprinkle or snow flurry or two? All the action remains to the north of us. But because that low is still there with that northwesterly wind, we can't rule out that chance. But overall, we are going dry for the evening. As we look at your radar, dry conditions for us. These are your low temperatures. We'll get down to the 30s again. 41 in D.C., 36 in Manassas, and then tomorrow afternoon, there's your high of 54 degrees. We'll have lots of clouds around Sydney. They'll eventually clear out as we go later into your evening hour, but the good news is we have a nice warm-up on the way, and we've got those 60s coming back to Sydney. Oh, Jen, we need that. Thank you. The Port of New Orleans has already sued the tanker that slammed into a docked river cruise boat on the Mississippi River yesterday. The city's port is seeking a million dollars in repair costs and wants federal investigators to seize that vessel owned by a Chinese company. There were no critical injuries there, thankfully, but 32 people aboard the riverboat were taken to the hospital. Officials say the tanker lost control and hit the five-story American Cruise Lines riverboat. That tanker was towed away from the scene, but that cruise ship remains turned there on its side. So to come in your news tonight at 6, an unprecedented meeting between the world's top nuclear powers, what President Trump is expected to discuss. And a battle ensues over who's going to be the next Senate majority leader. An expert is going to join me live to break it all down right when we come back.