FAA nationwide ground stop: Everything we know

Well, relief is finally coming for flyers across the United States. After nearly five hours of waiting, the FAA has lifted its nationwide ground stop due to what's being described as a communications problem. It was the first nationwide ground stop since 2023 when a key FAA computer system malfunctioned. That was a two-hour situation back then. This is the 10 o'clock news. I'm Jason Martinez. And I'm Dawn Timoney. The only other time there was a nationwide ground stop was after the 9-11 terror attacks. This is a live look right now at flight tracking website FlightAware showing current flight traffic over the country. At the time the ground stop was announced, it was just a little after 3.30 this afternoon, there were roughly 3,500 planes in U.S. airspace, that number all the way down to around 400 as airports worked to make sure flights could land safely. As for exactly what happened, the Trump administration says at this time there's no evidence it was linked to any kind of cyber attack. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed the issues on outdated analog systems. They got overloaded with data and caused... instability in the communication between regular air traffic control towers and airplanes. So the ground stop was issued out of an abundance of caution, he says. And he also says Congress needs to act so this doesn't happen again. It's the old hardware that went down. And I think the question for the American people is, do you want your Congress to fund this? President Trump has asked for the money. He's asked the Congress on a bipartisan approach to say, give us the resources to build a state-of-the-art air traffic control system. Let's not do a patchwork fix. To a system that's critical for every single family. It's not red, it's not blue, it's not Democrat, it's not Republican. It's American. Give us the money to fix it. And so even though the ground stop has been lifted, the situation is still ongoing here. Jeff Skoburski at PHL. Yeah, Jeff, travelers at baggage claim, how are they feeling? Frustrated, I guess. You better believe it. A travel nightmare across the country, including right here at Philadelphia International Airport. Hundreds of flights in and out of Philadelphia today canceled, delayed and diverted. And passengers we spoke with waiting hours upon hours for their bags. Some we spoke with four, five, six hours waiting for their luggage. Of course, trying to find hotels and even rebooking. Baggage claim at Philadelphia International Airport chaotic and confusing as passengers wait for their luggage and try to figure out where to go next. Some stranded after a shocking travel day with the FAA grounding flights for hours. I was on the plane. I heard the announcements that we had air traffic control because of... Unforeseen emergency, it wasn't safe to fly, which is a weird thing to hear when you're on the plane. Jason LaCroix could not believe what he heard when the pilot on his United flight home to Montana made the announcement, flights grounded, as he was on the runway about to take off. LaCroix says he never felt unsafe, but now he's stranded and scrambling. The airport concourse is a bit of chaos right now. People trying to decide what do they do, how do they get out of here. Every hotel within an hour is fully booked. Ubers are four times the price. To get where you need to go, so I decided it was time to pull out and hunker down somewhere else and wait for tomorrow. Thank you very much. Passengers were waiting and waiting for hours to get their bags. Some had no idea what was going on while they were in the air. The Patel family from Middletown, Delaware feels lucky they even got home tonight from Puerto Rico with their small children. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. We had no idea because there was no announcement or anything up there. Do you feel in a way fortunate that you were able to get back home? Yes, definitely. For sure. Bag is the lesser part, but to get back home on time, we thank God for that. Passenger Kira O'Connor passing the time, playing her guitar. The Chester Springs native was boarding her flight to Nashville where she has a music audition with a record label in the FAA grounded flight. Now she's waiting for hours for her bags before jumping in a rental car and making the drive. They're really freaked out. How long have you been waiting for your luggage? A couple hours now. And they're just telling me now that they don't even have authorization to take it off the plane. So I don't even know what we're going to do. We have a car sitting out of baggage claim. We just rented a car to drive to Nashville. Some travelers lucky to be able to get transportation at a Dodge. Others are stranded here tonight. That passenger right there told us earlier he was stuck trying to get to Alaska. Of course, this ground stop is lasting over four hours, but the ripple effect. Is going to be felt for days to come. There's already 40 flights for tomorrow canceled out of Philadelphia International Airport. We're live tonight at the airport. Jeff Skoburski, Fox 29 News. This is far from over. We'll see how long it takes to get everything back on track. Thank you, Jeff.