Flights grounded across U.S., FAA says. Here's what we know so far

All commercial flights across the U.S. have been grounded due to an outage impacting air traffic control. The FAA issuing the notice shortly before 4 p.m. Eastern. Nearly 7,000 flights have been delayed or canceled at airports right across the U.S. All flights in the air may be ordered to fly in a holding pattern. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed what he called a communication issue that's impacting the regional centers which control air traffic between airports. Our Tyler Chees joins us now from Pearson with more on this ground stop and how is it impacting flights in the GTA. Tyler, what is the latest there? Yeah, Dwight, I'm here at Terminal 1 just outside the U.S. departure gate. There's just a lot of confusion going on. Passengers tell us they're stuck in limbo with their bags and waiting for any kind of update. The GTAA has advised them to check in directly with their airlines for updates, but those who have heard from their airlines say they just don't have any concrete answers for them yet. So both Toronto airports are effectively frozen for cross-border travel. The GTAA has also told passengers flying out Billy Bishop downtown that they should check in with their airlines as well. Earlier, CBC News spoke with aviation expert John Gradyk, who gave us a little bit more insight on what's happening here. Here's what he had to say. This is not supposed to happen. We have fail-safe systems. We have backup systems that, you know, have been in place for years. The last time I saw something like this was really 9/11. Um, where we had, you know, a total shutdown of airspace and we, we had to get planes on the ground worldwide, um, quickly. Uh, this is not that, you know, that much of a, of a, of an issue at this point in time. I think we need to have those airplanes on the ground and nothing leaves and nothing gets back in the air until such time as these communication systems work. So it, it is, it's not as bad as 9-11, but it's still a major, major disruption. You're going to have hundreds of thousands of people whose trips will be interrupted tonight. So we do know so far there aren't any impacts to domestic flights, but that can change at any time, of course. And for now, it's just a waiting game here at Pearson as we're all waiting for more answers on when U.S. flights will finally be cleared to move again. And Dwight will be staying here on the ground and will continue to follow this story closely until we know more.