Nov. 14 (UPI) — More than 4,000 flights across the country were canceled Saturday after Friday’s ground stop that affected the entire United States.
While the ground stop was lifted at 8:15 p.m. EST Friday, airlines struggled to deal with the backlog of consumers trying to get to their destinations. More than 15,000 U.S. flights were delayed or canceled on Friday. Thousands of people waited in long lines or slept overnight in airports waiting for a flight.
“I’m confident, very, very confident, that the system is operating as safe today as it was two weeks ago,” said Federal Aviation Administrator Bryan Bedford at a Saturday press conference.
He said some officials were concerned that there were potential security threats after the global Microsoft outage this week.
He said the Flight Test Instrumentation system needs to be replaced and that the FAA will have to continue repairs until it’s replaced.
“But let’s not kid ourselves; it will continue to break until we replace it,” Bedford said.
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Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at a Saturday morning press conference that an old telecommunications system could be a partial reason for the ground stop.
At one remote Federal Aviation Administration location, a contractor was switching telecommunication lines from copper wire to fiber, CNN reported Duffy said.
“It was such an old wire that it was being discontinued, meaning that line was going to get shut down. So, we had to switch it over from old copper,” he said.
The government has not given a definitive reason for the ground stop but Duffy blamed an outdated air traffic control system and blamed Congress for not funding an upgrade. Duffy and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin have said there’s no evidence there was a cyberattack.
Democrats who gathered in Denver to plan the future of the party and celebrate their midterm elections win were stranded and gathered at a hotel bar Friday night to watch for TV updates, The New York Times reported.
Some of those who gathered were former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg; Sen. Elisa Slotkin, D-Mich.; New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill; Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger; Sen. Raphael Warnock, R-Ga.; and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va.
Buttigieg, after watching Duffy’s press conference, said, “You can just write down the comic book asterisk swearing characters,” Buttigieg told a Times reporter. “I have questions.”
Anne Caprara, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s chief of staff, said her governor was furious about the lack of information coming from the administration.
“Welcome to Denver’s hottest bar, the Mos Eisley Cantina of politics,” Caprara joked, likening the scene to the bar in Star Wars. “With Veep characters and a Terminator 2 vibe.”
The last nationwide ground stop was January 2023 when there was an outage in a pilot notification system. Before that, the last one was after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.
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