FAA: All flights grounded nationwide

Alright, good afternoon and welcome back here to Fox Local San Francisco. I'll take you inside the newsroom. Coming off of some incredible stories here that are developing in just the past hour or so, we thought weather was going to be the big story of the day. That turns out not to be the case. The headline here coming from the FAA that the Federal Aviation Administration has grounded all flights nationwide because of communications problems at regional air traffic control centers. The FAA says that the full ground stop is being imposed due to, and I'll read their exact language because this sort of You know, had us prick our ears as well. Extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety. Let me do this. I'm going to pull up a live picture here of the Bay Area's largest airport. You know this picture. SFO here, very quiet. I'll sort of read the image with you. Of course, raindrops on the screen. Weather was the big story of the day until this came along. We see a number of planes, too many for me to easily count, just sitting there on the ground, no movement, no planes landing or taking off. So it is a very quiet scene here at SFO. And that story plays out nationwide. Let me take you about two thirds of the way across the country to what is happening over at O'Hare. This is Chicago's major airport. I am assuming the situation. And the picture is probably similar over at its smaller airport, Midway. O'Hare Airport, very quiet as well. Interesting, I do see, take a look with me right in the center bottom of your screen. Looks like that is one plane sort of taxiing. I don't know if it's just getting into sort of a resting position at a gate, but I don't expect it to to be taking off or perhaps maybe did it just recently land? I don't know. You can tell by this picture that there are a couple of hours ahead of us. Chicago is in the central time zone. So two hours ahead puts us at about 20 minutes to five there. Wait, no, 20 minutes to four. So there. Two hours ahead of us, you can see that their day is ending sooner. Again, the headline here that we wanted to bring you, Ali, did a great job of bringing us the breaking news here. The FAA has issued a full ground stop nationwide due to communications problems at regional air traffic control centers. FAA said this is due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety. I have another image, and it's not a live look outside, but it does tell the same story, sort of in a different way. I'll bring that in now. What you're seeing here is a live picture. We jumped on flight radar and you see some planes that appear like they may be in transit. I don't know if this hasn't quite updated yet, but you see a lot of those yellow plane markers right around SFO. So it looks like a lot of planes that were coming into SFO are being held there again. No planes leaving either. So, again, not as good a picture as the live image we had of SFO and O'Hare in Chicago. And I'll get back to that in just a second. But this sort of does inform you as As to what's going on. Again, Wow. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said there's a communications issue affecting 22 regional air traffic control centers that direct the planes en route between airports nationwide. Oh, sorry. I thought I heard. Hang on. Let me go ahead and ask my friend Sammy on our assignment desk. Do you have any new information? Not. Not quite yet, but we are getting a conversation with Mike McCarron. Oh, he's excellent. Former longtime SFO spokesperson, Mike McCarron. Good, good, good. All right, there, you heard it from Sammy first, but I'll just reiterate. Longtime KTVU and Fox local viewers know that we have been leaning on Mike McCarron. He's a former longtime spokesperson for San Francisco International. No longer in that post, but of course still an aviation expert. We'll bring him in and hopefully get sort of a lay of the land as to how this traffic... A stoppage is affecting flights, not just here, but across the country. I'll go back to that picture here in O'Hare. It's sort of strangely beautiful, right? Like the sun is beginning to set. It's such a quiet picture, but I can't begin to imagine the panic that is sitting in for the travelers at O'Hare, Midway, here at home at SFO, Oakland, San Jose, all of the airports nationwide now full of travelers on what is usually one of the busiest, if Busier, if not busiest, travel days, right? It's kind of the back end of your Friday. You're hoping to get out of town or fly home to your family. Again, the headline here, there's a complete and total ground stop underway. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says this is the result of a communications issue affecting the 20-plus regional air traffic control centers that direct the planes between airports. We know the last time this happened, it's interesting. Sure, go ahead. Great. I would love a double box with SFO and with Chicago's airport. If that's not exactly what you were thinking, let me know. Sorry, I'm talking with one of our producers here. This is very much an all-hands-on-deck situation. Thank Of course, a lot of us thought back to September 11th. I know it wasn't that long ago that we marked 25 years since the terrorist attacks there. That was the first time in my life that I remember. you A total ground stop being ordered. And of course, that was due to extraordinary circumstances. very I had to sort of go back in my mind here. And there was a more recent one, a much more recent one, much. a ground stop back in the beginning of January in twenty twenty three. That day, the FAA temporarily halted domestic departures nationwide. They said that there was a. Failure involving, and this is a new system to me, what the FAA calls its Notice to Air Missions system, which provides pilots with critical safety info. So if you were with us back on that Wednesday morning in 2023, you learned about the ground stop. It hit around 7.15 Eastern time, so 4.15 our time. You were probably on the air with mornings on, too. The ground stop was lifted not too long after at about 9 a.m., so it didn't even last a full two hours. I think I remember it now, and I believe it sort of caused problems for the rest of the day. In fact, we see more than 10,000 flights were delayed that day. More than 1,000 had to be canceled. That really was the first nationwide ground stop that we'd seen since that terrible day on September 11th. Just so interesting to be able to go back in recent history, just a few years, and remember that we did go through that together. And then, of course, we go way back 25 years. Thank that just of course if you if you were alive on September 11th of 2001 you remember it i don't have to describe it to you myself all right let's do this i'll take you back inside the newsroom here i'm looking at the same screen you're looking at just so you know uh the top picture there on the right hand side is of SFO very quiet very gray no plans arriving you. or landing and then right below Chicago's O'Hare Airport and again it's a very quiet scene there i did just get a note from our Our producer, Sammy. Who says Mike McCarron is about to join us live. All right, Mark Nouveau. Oh, perfect. Let me, I'm sorry. Let me talk with our producers just for a second. I'll leave you online. Do we, are we sure that we have audio for Mark Nouveau? Will we be able to hear him as well as see him? Let me go ahead and check. You know, let's do this. Mark is a pro. You've seen him. We've called on him a number of times when it comes to disaster preparedness and disaster response. So I am just going to, oops, I am just going to. Go ahead and give him a live mic check on the air. Hold on one second. All right, let me do this. Marc Niveau, you're a pro. Thank you so much for joining us. Let me make sure that I can hear you. I'm going to pull your audio up. Marc Niveau, are you with us? I am, Kasia. I can hear you. Perfect. Good morning. It worked perfectly. Good afternoon to you, actually. I appreciate your joining us on literally a minute's notice. First, tell us what you think we need to know about this major step by the FAA, a complete and total ground stop ordered in less than the past hour. Yeah well I think you've touched on it already in your communications with viewers and that's the seriousness of this. It is so rare to have us ground all aircraft and so when we get to that level we know there's some seriousness here. We don't know specifically what that is but recognize the impact of that both from a safety standpoint, economic standpoint. Etc. And so that's, you know, the federal government, the FAA is not going to do that unless there's enough of a concern that they feel that's the only choice they have. How long do you think this situation is going to be impacting flights? Because the last ground stop mark that we had was back in 2023, and it lasted a couple of hours. We are almost an hour in on this one with no sign of anything being pulled back. Exactly. And I think that's the scary part, right? We just don't know. Now, keep in mind, too, a lot of times when we talk about the seriousness of it, that the idea behind this is we want to make sure that everybody's safe. And so there's a concern nationwide that we think the best approach is to be able to hold people on ground. Now, what they've not done, if you notice, is they haven't said to the aircraft en route to a location to check. Change that direction and land at the closest airport. They're keeping them moving to their original destination. But as I've, you know, as of a few minutes ago, anyways, it was no more takeoffs. So that's kind of a good, bad message, if you will. Concerned because we're having to do it. But good that you can have those planes continue on to their original destination. Mark, do you have any insight? And we should say you're not an aviation expert, but you have worked with the federal government. You have for sure lived and talked about disaster response. And some people might call what's happening here some measure of a disaster. Do you have any information on how this system works, the 22 regional air traffic control centers that direct planes en route between airports? Because that's sort of the epicenter, if you will, of the issue that's shutting down all the. All the airports in this country. Yeah, let's talk about that a little bit and we can go by tier. For instance, for our viewers, if you see a local incident, let's use for example, there's an automobile accident on 880 and we want to get patients to a trauma center. Sometimes we'll make the determination as incident commanders and paramedics that we want to use an air ambulance to get those patients to a particular Stanford, Eden, whatever it is to get them as quickly as possible to a trauma center. So what we're talking about is that we can shut down that airspace so we can contact the FAA and they'll give us basically a temporary shutdown in that particular airspace. You'll see this frequently in wildland fires that we shut down airspace. So that's kind of the spur of the moment deal. Now also what we have and what's interesting is in Fremont, we've got the Pacific West Coast Air Traffic Control Center. And so what that does is it controls airspace. I believe it's above 10,000. So anything that's below 10,000 is coordinating by the local airports. If you get to the ground, an airplane gets down to an airport, you'll have ground transportation traffic. They'll actually, Folks in the tower at the local airports controlling what's on the aircraft that's on the ground as well as aircraft that's within a certain altitude. Now when we get above that 10,000 that's what you're talking about. The air traffic control centers and to your point 22 of them across the country that control the airspace above that level. So that's usually those aircraft Jetliners that are traveling long distance states to state, country to country. Does that help a little bit, Kasia? It does. Mark, can I run something by you? And I'm just going to read straight from the update that I have from the Associated Press. The government has been working to overhaul outdated technology that our air traffic controllers rely on. Congress approved 12 and a half billion for the project last year. We're talking about old copper wire. Some of that's been replaced with fiber optics. But I think there is general agreement that the system needs an update and an overhaul. Can you speak to that part of this story? Yeah, I don't, to the depth of what we're talking about, I have toured the FAA center in, they call it the Oakland Center, located in Fremont. And those folks, they work, you know, 24, let me hold, 12-hour shifts. So they work almost like a first responder shift. But if you'll see them, they're taking a look at screens, there's computer capability within the system. But we've been talking about, as a government, as a country, replacing that system for quite some time. And there's concern that as that system starts to age, it won't keep up with what technology is today. So that's the discussion. The challenge becomes, number one, the amount of money that it's going to take to do that. And certainly the challenge of transitioning from, if you will, an old system to a new system and make sure that's done seamlessly. Mark, can you talk a little bit about the ground stop that lasted a couple hours back in 2023? We'll And then what I'd really like to do is go back to September 11th of 2001, because that was the first ground stop. I think, folks, I'm guessing we're sort of in the same age range here. be That was the first time we'd ever heard of such a thing. right And I'm with you. You know, it's amazing to me when we talk about that, because I don't think folks realized how many aircraft are in the air back. at any one time. For me in particular, I thought it was hundreds. We're talking about thousands. So when we talk about taking the extreme measures, as we're seeing today, saying that we do not want any more aircraft taking off. You know, that's thousands of jetliners that now are grounded to a location and the trickle effect of that is tremendous, right? I mean, it takes a long time to get the system back up and operating, even if we're talking about a one or two hour. It could be days before we can get those flights rescheduled, get the passengers transitioned and get the system back to operating. Can I ask you, and I stepped away from Fox Local for a second, and I talked with friends of mine in the newsroom who also lived through September 11th, and when I first got the word about this total ground stop, and maybe I'm a worrier, my first thought went straight to there's a threat, we're in danger, do I have any loved ones in the air right now? Disaster thinking, that's what a therapist would say, right? Should we be concerned that this is anything other than what it's being presented as? Not at this time. To your point, the measure of saying that we want to make sure aircraft isn't taken off is alarming in itself. Let's not downplay that. But the same token, we're not necessarily seeing them, as I mentioned earlier, have them ground those aircraft. If you remember during 9-11, what happened was, you know, the president said, no, we're not going to have any more takeoffs. But at the same time, they had those aircraft divert to the closest facility, airport. That's not what's happening right now, so that's kind of an encouraging thing. But there is enough of a concern here that they want to make sure we don't get any more aircraft in the air. Communications, we don't know. You know, it's a precautionary thing, no question about it. So what's happening? Let's say my husband's flying back from Chicago. We went to go see his mom. For those folks who were in the air when this order came down, what are they experiencing? I think right now most of them, with the exception of being able to communicate now on jetliners, right, we can communicate through a phone if you've got access to internet and texting, so they're probably communicating with loved ones trying to figure out what's going on, plus whatever information that the pilots have that they're sharing with Those people on board and keep in mind with thousands of flights, not the pilots themselves are following direction. They may not know specifically why they're actually having not have any more planes take off. All they know is there's a concern. And so they're going to kind of keep their antenna up, if you will, and pay attention to what's going on and try and figure out what information can we share with people to create, make sure we have calmness. But be informative, but also don't compromise the situation and escalate it where people would panic because of something, information that's erroneously presented. And that happens in these times, right? It's people wanting to try and figure out what's going on. A very earnest, you know, effort. We're concerned. We've got loved ones in the air. Somebody says something, next thing you know, that rumor takes off and it's totally inaccurate and creates speculation and concern. So it's important to try and get as much information as possible, but not get overly alarmed. Right. And so, Mark, just so you know, our friends at home can now see us on Fox Local San Francisco and on KTVU Fox 2 News. This is important enough that we felt we could take people to the story in any number of ways. Let me go back to what you said about the pilots who were in the air, the passengers who were in the air. Let's again imagine it's my. It's my husband coming back from seeing his mom. They may not be getting the full story because, of course, we don't want anyone to panic. My first thought went to if I'm flying, I can't stay in the air forever, right? There's a matter of how much fuel does each airplane have? Do you know what sort of like what's the timeline that you can stay up there? Yeah, they've got margins of error built into that fuel load too, right? They're trying to run those planes as economically as possible. So they're going to put enough fuel on board to get them to their destination. And then they have a margin that they put in there for emergency situations. So there's adequate fuel there to make sure that those people are safe. They're not going to run out of fuel midair or anything of that nature. What they are doing is continuing to their destination, wherever that may be. And, you know, I'm sure they've got their tent up, as we mentioned earlier. And they're waiting for the FAA to continue to give them notification about what's transpiring and or change any direction that they already have. But for those people in the air where they're destined to, right as of now, they're going to continue on to their destination. OK, and they've got quite a story to tell. Let me do this. I'm going to go ahead and put you on pause. I appreciate your joining us on such short notice. You've always brought such good insight from the disaster response, from the federal emergency action. Mark Nouveau, I do appreciate you joining us here. I wish you safe travels to this rainy second half of a Friday. Thank you again. You're welcome, Garcia. Thank you.