00:13:29Listen, we've got a site here that a lot of people are pointing us to that is telling pilots what's happening,
00:13:36and that is the Airline Pilots Association.
00:13:38Wait, did anyone hear someone say, can you stop reporting, please, or was that just me?
00:13:42Because I literally heard someone say, can you stop reporting, please?
00:13:46This printout that technical and communication system issues affecting flight and safety information systems, including NOTAM air traffic data.
00:13:56The FAA has been gradually lifting restrictions and resuming normal air traffic operations as systems come back online, though residual delays and cancellations are expected nationwide.
00:14:07As far as airspace status, you can check real-time updates and active regional restrictions via the National Airspace System status page.
00:14:15But that is the message from the Airline Pilots Association, two pilots, just released a few minutes ago.
00:14:22The other word I'm getting is that officials at the White House expect a brief again tonight, possibly at the top of the hour, 7 to 7.30 p.m.
00:14:32We're monitoring that for an exact time, but we expect officials and possibly the Homeland Security Secretary, maybe the Transportation Secretary, will see who's a part of that briefing anywhere between 7 p.m. Eastern and 7.30 Eastern Time.
00:14:46Senior National Correspondent Rich Edson has more here, Rich, and there's a history that goes back in some of these things.
00:14:53It's only happened twice, as we mentioned before, 2023 and 9-11, but there's some backstory to all of that.
00:15:01Yeah, there is, Brad. And, you know, also to talk about some of this flight traffic opening up again, San Francisco International Airport has announced that flights going over the Pacific, that's notable, this isn't traffic that's going to be going over the lower 48 states, but Pacific bound traffic, places like Hawaii and Asia, that has opened up again.
00:15:20And we've also confirmed that looking at the chart there and the departures board at SFO.
00:16:09but I have been waiting all day to share this video from Scott Bassett.
00:16:17So the U.S. grounding flight situation, it can, you know, we can wait a moment because this interview with Scott Besson today is absolutely epic.
00:16:32And the flight situation is just getting started.
00:17:23And the IRGC, they're like a dangerous cornered animal.
00:17:27So I follow the Secret Service instructions and have moved from my home to a military base.
00:17:34And what I will tell you, Joe, I do want to say that one of the reasons I've had to move is because the Wall Street Journal printed a photo of my house the day I bought it.
00:20:31So those are also the types of issues that people are dealing with when they travel
00:20:35and don't expect to be delayed or canceled for days on end, Brett.
00:20:40Brian, as far as the numbers of people there, a lot of people obviously try to get other
00:20:46transportation and I'm sure the rental cars and the buses out of there.
00:20:51But are there a lot of people at the airport at six and at LaGuardia?
00:20:54Yeah, you know, to be honest with you, not as many as I have seen in the past, but this is only one of the major terminals.
00:21:02I know that there are other terminals who are experiencing complete blank out cancellations throughout.
00:21:07But getting here wasn't as difficult as I would expect at around 5 p.m. on a Friday headed to the airport.
00:21:14So but there are people here that are lingering, no doubt about it.
00:21:17And some are getting some information. Others are getting more information.
00:21:21And so you better believe that there are people who are trying to make their backup plans.
00:21:25This is New York City. There's plenty of hotels, but those hotels can get expensive very quickly.
00:21:30There's also not as many hotels right near the airport.
00:21:33So if you're not from here, all of a sudden you start going through a litany of questions and issues about where to go and how to get there.
00:21:39Luckily, you can take a bus and there's the subway and the train system here in New York City, which is more than what most other cities can say during times like this.
00:21:47But right now, the mood here is calm. People are looking up at the boards.
00:21:50Again, there are a lot of cancellations, but there are also many flights that have been delayed for four to five hours.
00:21:58So there is still hope here that these flights will take off tonight, but we'll see.
00:22:03Okay, Brian, yes, we'll head back in a bit.
00:22:06Let's check in with Chief Correspondent Jonathan Hunt out in Los Angeles.
00:27:24But, man, it tells you the threat environment in right now that's when a guy like me immediately starts thinking like that.
00:27:31Yeah. I mean, there are multiple reports coming out.
00:27:35CBS is reporting that an update to the private communications network that connects America's air traffic control system caused the system to reboot.
00:27:43When the FAA's telecommunication infrastructure rebooted, it crashed, causing the communication outage.
00:28:03just a heads up it's a national ground stop for all aircraft update time unknown
00:28:09chicago center is close to being atc zero as well for equipment we lost
00:28:12we just got updated that as of right now the ground stop isn't affected until 2100 local time
00:28:17number 2520 alpha meacham tower there is a ground stop nationwide i advise you land your aircraft
00:28:24where would you like to land uh ma'am i'm student pilot honestly this is my time i'm doing solo
00:28:30cross country and I don't know what to do where did you come from yeah so you can imagine getting
00:28:39those uh kind of urgent calls uh and in the first moments of this uh you know shortly after 4 p.m
00:28:46eastern time Brett I'll be honest with you man my heart rate's going up a little bit hearing all
00:28:50that because it does bring me back to the morning of September 11th I pray to God it's nothing bad
00:28:56but a quick shout out to my fellow Americans. Let's give some grace and first of all, let's
00:29:01have some gratitude that things are okay. Airplanes aren't falling out of the sky and some
00:29:07grace to the gate agents, to the flight crews and to the cabin crews. We all operate those
00:29:11airplanes wanting to be safe. So we're all in this together. As you alluded to earlier,
00:29:16a ground stop like this, it is a ripple effect. We're going to see days of cancellations and
00:29:21reschedulings and as you said earlier in your coverage that a lot of flight crews are going
00:29:26turn into pumpkins we have crew day issues so but these airlines have reserves and they'll call
00:29:30out the reserves and stuff like that so we'll get uh through this but you know brett it really is
00:29:35kind of a sad indictment of our air traffic control system every administration for the past
00:29:40let's just say 40 years has said hey we have to fix this the trump administration is finally uh
00:29:45not kicking the can down the road secretary duffy has been burning the midnight oil trying to get
00:29:50this thing fixed. I'm gonna age myself. They use floppy disks, right? And transistors still.
00:29:56So dragging this thing into the new age was never going to be easy. So hopefully it's just that
00:30:02and nothing else that's bad. Yeah, thank you so much for being here. And you're right. We've
00:30:06been dealing with it for decades. Hopefully we're getting there. Thank you. Let's go to
00:30:10co-anchor of America reports, Sandra Smith. She's at LaGuardia in Queens. Hey, Sandra.0.99
00:30:15I wish I was joining you under better circumstances. I'm trying to get to the LSU game in Baton Rouge, Brett.
00:30:22So this is sort of the same. I can sort of, let's see, I mean, it's almost every single flight is canceled here.
00:30:29What I can tell you is a representative from Delta just walked over to me and said that they have been told,
00:30:36even though there's a couple flights still scheduled up here, although I'd say 95% of the flights are canceled,
00:30:42he said delta said no flights will be going out tonight and believe it or not right with my luck
00:30:48one of the only flights that still looks like it has a chance is baton rouge but so here's the deal
00:30:55i've spoken to a couple pilots while i've been at the airport you can sort of see the crowds behind
00:31:00me there are people holding out hope otherwise rebooking the the airport was seriously rocking
00:31:07with hope that like things would happen but then slowly things got canceled i spoke to a um the
00:31:13pilot on one of the delta flights who said he landed in the middle of the ground stop and he
00:31:20said it was like it was it was not a difficult situation like they were able to communicate
00:31:25which i think is really important so they were informed of the ground stop in the middle of the
00:31:29flight and they landed and it was not like he couldn't communicate with the ground operations
00:31:34And I think that's really important to get across.
00:31:37But otherwise, right now, what you're seeing is just sort of still an exodus from LGA as people are getting word that their flights are canceled.
00:32:04I mean, this is it's only happened a couple of times.
00:32:08Yeah. You know, the more I talk to people, it's one of those Friday night sort of environments at the airport.
00:32:12You know, people are a lot of people are going fun places or trying to get home.
00:32:16So people are holding out hope. And let me I don't know if I can flip, but I can kind of do this for you right now.
00:32:24It's just an exodus. People are just sort of leaving the restaurants were full.
00:32:29People were just waiting to see what was going to happen.
00:32:32And I think one of the main, you know, the one of the main things I was hearing from people was they just hoped it wasn't a hack or somebody taking over the system.
00:32:42And if it's a telecommunications thing, they were happy to know that things will just get online and they can fly out in the morning.
00:32:48So people are trying to stay optimistic. I think that's fair.
00:32:52Yes. And you will, too. And you'll cheer on your team, I'm sure.
00:35:18So we were mid-flight when the ground stop was declared.
00:35:23And so we had Starlink, actually, on this aircraft.
00:35:26So I was on Twitter. Our ex, I saw that development and told my roommates like, hey, this could get weird and dicey.
00:35:34So they made an announcement. Of course, we knew that we were going to be allowed to land.
00:35:38But once we landed, there were no gates available because everyone was occupied.
00:35:42So they had us just sitting there for quite some time and going through this laborious process, basically, of deplaning aircraft at each gate and then towing the airplanes away.
00:35:53so stranded airplanes like ours could then get to the gate and people are like now what kevin i'm
00:35:59on to you flight are we here can't corn is delicious by the way multiple days uh lots of
00:36:04questions and very few answers yeah so and the attitude of people i mean kind of dealing with
00:36:10it i mean yeah i mean the flight attendants i was flying united they were very professional
00:36:15they came around with like cookies and you know waters to keep people somewhat mollified and
00:36:20And people are taking it, I think, in stride, relatively good spirits.
00:36:24But there is concern about what's going on here.
00:36:27People mumbling about yesterday and Microsoft Outlook and that whole meltdown.
00:36:32And then today, is that a weird coincidence?
00:36:49Okay. So, um, guys, Drachev is saying, I find the lack of meat disturbing. Um, Drachev, that's because I had, okay, listen, guys. So, fun fact, you know, I eat healthy all week. I eat healthy. I have small meals, you know, because I'm busy, I'm working, I'm doing my thing.
00:37:14And then Friday, Friday evenings is like, okay, you know what, it's Friday, I'm gonna have like a nice meal. So I already like, pre ordered my meal. And you know, I had it coming. And the whole plan was to do my earlier live stream. And then I was gonna have like a one hour break, eat my dinner, and then come back for my 7pm live stream.
00:37:41So, um, my Friday evening dinner is not just salad and it's not just, you know, it's not just
00:37:52vegetables, but my dinner is also steak. So for those of you who are saying you find the lack
00:37:59of meat disturbing, I literally have steak, but my steak has gone cold because, um, I didn't have
00:38:07time to eat my steak. So there you go. Uh, it's not that there's a lack of meat. The meat is right
00:38:15there. It's just, it's hard to like cut and eat steak in the middle of a live stream. So
00:38:21my whole dinner is here. I just, I can't eat it. So there you go. Guys, I swear to God, I'm not a
00:38:30vegan. No, no issues with, you know, people who want to be vegan, but I'm Iranian. Like I need
00:38:37meat. Like I love kebab. I live off of kebabs. So there you go. There you go. But right now I'm
00:38:43just eating my salad. Anyways, let's get back to the live stream. Eat it with your aunt. Guys,
00:38:53this is not what are the what are those um what are those youtube channels called
00:38:58or or like what's it called where you go to like just watch people eat
00:39:05oh gosh there's like a name for it no i don't work for bake for big salad i swear i don't work
00:39:16for big salad. I have, I have my steak right here. Yeah. The mukbang mukbang guys, this is not a
00:39:24mukbang channel. I'm not going to do like a muk. Yeah. Mukbang. This is not mukbang. I'm not going1.00
00:39:32to do a mukbang. Maybe Rose will, maybe Rose will. But, um, if I was ever going to do mukbang,1.00
00:39:40it would be like iranian food mukbang but that's not what's happening tonight but don't worry guys
00:39:48i'm not i'm not a vegetarian i i have my steak i just i'm just focusing on the news so let's
00:39:56let's just get back to the news well the democrat from washington state who's the top democrat on
00:40:02that panel both of them have sent out statements talking about wait wait laszlo was like what is
00:40:07mukbang I don't know okay if you don't know what mukbang is I don't know Laszlo if you want to be
00:40:14introduced to mukbang you know what let's let's watch a little bit of the live news because listen
00:40:19guys a lot of this right now is just filler a lot of this is filler it's just they're just trying to
00:40:26fill the the gap until you know an official from the White House speaks so um let's listen to this
00:40:35but laszlo i will find a mukbang video for you and then you will be traumatized for life
00:40:42how about that being up into the northeast and you know congress they held hearings on this
00:40:47for months later that year this was in 2003 very rarely with the exception of what we had in january
00:40:54of uh 2023 where we had uh you know a shorter outage uh ground stop there you know compared
00:41:00to 9-11 certainly they went the whole hog into that investigation to try to figure out what was
00:41:06going on because it affected so many people for such a profuse period of time oh wow and that's
00:41:11kind of some guys we have a breaking news update from one of our viewers so arton says
00:41:15i just arrived um at los angeles from dallas right now it's been two hours since we landed
00:41:24with no gates available lax is chaotic right now wow arts and thank you so much for the updates
00:41:34please be safe like it's it's insane it's chaotic out there right now but um thank you for that
00:41:42thank you for letting us know so yeah apparently lax is wild guys if any of you are in an airport
00:41:48or flying um let me know give us the live news updates here here we have reached out asking if
00:41:57that is true and where exactly they might be headed uh but again no word from the airport just
00:42:01yet that is what one of our photographers is seeing up there though meanwhile here outside
00:42:05of departures uh out by united we are seeing some people continue checking in for their flights at
00:42:11the kiosks as well as continuing to make their way through security behind us but within the last
00:42:16hour, we've spoken to a couple of people who were past security. They were waiting to board their
00:42:21flights when they got the notification about this ground stop and they made their way out back on the
00:42:26other side of security saying they were not optimistic that they were going to be catching
00:42:30any flights tonight. And this is part of why. If you take a look over here at this board,
00:42:34we can see that all of these are crossed out. It's canceled all across the board. People are
00:42:40walking up, trying to make out their flights, trying to figure out what's happening next.
00:42:43Some say delayed. Of course, we do see some that appear to be on schedule as of this board, but still working to confirm exactly what is going on with all of these flights and how long this could be lasting. Meanwhile, a lot of people trickling into departures with confusion. They keep telling us that they either don't know what is going on. They don't know why the news is here. They don't know that their flights are likely canceled for the evening or they're trying to figure out exactly how long this will last. And of course, what exactly caused this massive nationwide ground stop
00:43:13Brett. In the meantime, a lot of people here also hunkering down, hoping that they will still make those flights somehow tonight.
00:43:21Okay, Natalie, thank you. Natalie Chuck at Los Angeles International Airport.
00:43:25Well, we've been following this breaking coverage, rolling coverage, really since 4 p.m. Eastern time when Will Kane took over the breaking news at the first part of this,
00:43:37national ground stop, all flights brought down to the ground from the FAA, citing a telecommunication
00:43:45problem. Haven't really gotten to the gist of exactly what that means of radio communication
00:43:52with pilots. The Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen came out, gave a briefing to
00:43:57reporters at the White House and told them that he believed that all of the flights can get to
00:44:04the ground safely, that communication can be established below a certain level. We're told
00:44:09it's about 14,000 feet and that the issues they are working through right at that moment did not
00:44:16believe to be nefarious. We are hearing from multiple officials the same thing, to be cautious.
00:44:23They ordered the ground stop. Thank you for inviting us into your home tonight. That's it
00:44:28for this special report. Fair, balanced, and still unafraid. We have breaking coverage.
00:44:33All right. So while we're waiting for the next breaking, the next breaking news coverage, we'll get to that momentarily.
01:19:40peered off course. They say it lost control. We don't quite know how, but it really, when you look at the trajectory of it, it came under the present city connection, which connects the east and the west bank in New Orleans, and then veered right into this T-boning, this cruise liner, this huge paddle loop. So we await the investigators. They were on their way from the NTSC to figure out what happened here. They, of course, are caught in the ground stop you talked about and are reporting on
01:20:10all evening. So it'll be a few days until we figure out exactly what happens.
01:20:14But the good news from New Orleans is all the passengers are safe.
01:20:18Everybody's accounted for and they're making them comfortable in area hotels
01:20:22and hopefully their lives will be back to normal like the rest of ours.
01:20:25But Raymond, I don't understand. You can't get us over to the,
01:42:085,000 planes in the air, almost a million people traveling, and now we're down to 400.
01:42:14We've gotten all those planes down safely, even despite what was seen as an absolute emergency
01:42:21with communication. That is how safe the flying public is in the U.S. airspace.
01:42:27Well, we're learning now that every flight from Europe coming in
01:42:33is being suspended. So we've heard various reports that some planes, I guess, were cleared in
01:42:43because it was so late when they got the notice, but that all aviation from Europe
01:42:49has also been shut down. Unless when we get a briefing soon, we'll know whether or not that's
01:42:55true. But I mean, again, the domestic implications to this, all the individual families we're seeing
01:43:02who are impacted by this, but this has international implications. And it also, it does send a
01:43:09message to the rest of the world, I think, that, you know, we put safety first. We're not going to
01:43:14push it when we can't push it. But it also does show vulnerability to our system, which I think
01:43:20President Trump, DHS, they've been trying to get this remedied as soon as possible, as has the
01:43:27department of transportation. They absolutely have. And the need has definitely been defined. I mean, the government accountability office just came out with a report in September, identifying 76% of the FAA systems that were unsustainable. Over three quarters of the systems are unsustainable and need updating. The problem is, this isn't like road work on your local interstate where we can close the lane. This is quite honestly is we're having to rebuild the plane while we're flying.
01:44:24whoa fox news alert we're expecting a briefing at the white house from homeland security and
01:44:31the faa at any moment the faa has issued a nationwide ground stop planes aren't allowed
01:44:36to take off and the ones in the sky are circling and trying to land at their destination this is
01:44:42only the second time something like this has happened since 9 11. the agency is saying the
01:44:47grounding is due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety secretary of transportation
01:44:53Sean Duffy blaming a telecommunications issue and says they're investigating. The president
01:44:58has told Fox that it doesn't seem like a cyber attack, but they haven't ruled anything out.
01:45:04This started back at four o'clock Eastern and has lasted for four hours already.
01:45:09Holman Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen addressing reporters from outside the White
01:45:13House, telling people not to panic. There's no reason for the public to be afraid or scared
01:45:20for your loved ones. This isn't a another 9-11. I just can't repeat that enough. People are making
01:45:27that assumption because that's the last time we had a nationwide ground stoppage. This is a
01:45:32telecommunication outage. This is much different. The FAA is slowly and gradually lifting
01:45:40restrictions, which is great news, but still big concern. Some international flights going over
01:45:46the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans are leaving. The Wall Street Journal reporting that telecom
01:45:51issues have been coming back online at some air traffic facilities. Others are still in a total
01:45:58blackout. Control towers and ground control still have eyes and ears and are helping flights land.
01:46:04And pilots can still talk to other pilots in the air, but nationwide communications are on the
01:46:10Fritz. All this is coming after a tanker lost control and crashed into a cruise ship on the
01:46:17Mississippi River this afternoon. A major rescue operation has already taken place and we'll have
01:46:22more on that later in the show. And yesterday, an adage wiped out all Microsoft's email for
01:46:28pretty much most of the day. So what's going on? Nobody knows. Senior White House correspondent
01:46:35Peter Doocy joins us now. What's going on, Peter?
01:46:40Jesse, we think that we're going to have Sean Duffy and Mark Wayne Mullen out here any minute.
01:46:45To the point that you were just making, though, about that outage of Microsoft yesterday, the global email outage,
01:46:51I asked DHS Secretary Mullen about that earlier, and if it's just a coincidence that that happened one day before this huge GroundStop-related outage.
01:47:01and he said they don't think that these two things are connected but we know that a lot of people who
01:47:06are watching this show right now are skeptical because it just seems like there is something
01:47:12that the government knows about what is causing all of this and we hope to get answers uh to those
01:47:18questions and basically what we're left with here at the white house is uh two choices right it's
01:47:24It's either some kind of a cyber attack or it is a system that is relying on old broken stuff.
01:47:31And it has broken down. Which one is worse? We might get an assessment on that.
01:47:37I spoke to the president a few minutes ago.
01:47:40Old broken stuff is the term that he used when he was explaining what he thinks happened here.
01:47:45He said this does not seem at this moment to be a cyber attack.
01:47:51And he says that nobody is taking credit for a cyber attack, which is something that would presumably happen if it was a cyber attack.
01:47:58But he said that the nation's air traffic relies on a system of 55-year-old stuff and that there is some old broken stuff in the system that he says he is trying to upgrade.
01:48:09And if that is the case, it has not been upgraded.
01:53:08Okay. Arthur Rosenberg, that's a sign because Rose Gamari is joining soon.
01:53:14The phrase that came to my mind was, he thinks thou protest too much.
01:53:19The Transportation Secretary, Secretary of Homeland Security, told us that it wasn't a cyber attack, it wasn't artificial intelligence.
01:53:28There was a new system that went online, or they tried to a few days ago.
01:53:32They've told us what it isn't, they think, maybe, but they haven't told us what it is.
01:53:38And given the fact that we're three or four hours downstream for when this debacle started, I would venture to say that they probably don't know.
01:53:46But most important thing here is, and I want the flying public to know, whether you're in the air, on the ground, everyone is safe.
01:53:54Just because Air Route Traffic Control Center went offline, 22 of those throughout the United States, doesn't mean, and in fact, the tower controllers, tower radars, were alive and well and functioning.
01:54:06And that's how they were able to get all these planes safely on the ground, from thousands down to a few hundred.
01:54:13It's going to take a week or so to get this thing back online once they crank it up again.
01:54:19But the most important thing, safety first above all else.
01:54:22So, Arthur, what is your level of concern if the guys in charge of running transportation and homeland security in the country don't know what's going on?
01:54:34Yeah, well, look, we could shift gears and get into a whole conspiracy, nefarious situation
01:54:43and pontificate on what we think happened.
01:56:39He's a former CIA officer and host of The Wright Report.
01:56:44So, I mean, just in the last week and now this, what do you think is going on?
01:56:49Well, you nailed it at the top of the show.
01:56:51you laid out the three things that I think folks need to focus on to put this into context.
01:56:56Not only do we have this issue of the FAA grounding, yesterday we had the Microsoft
01:57:00meltdown. Still no answers there. The other piece coming out of Louisiana, just outside of,
01:57:05of course, New Orleans, this ship running into this river cruiser. Why is that alarming? Well,
01:57:11we know that about a couple of weeks ago, Iran took over an oil tanker out in the Atlantic Ocean
01:57:16into the Gulf of America. Islamic regime. So we know that Iranian cyber hackers are attacking0.91
01:57:21our boats and driving them into other boats. So we have this environment of risk is I called it
01:57:26and we're having these very strange coincidences, coincidences, I guess we could call it. So
01:57:30that's what I would encourage folks to think about not in isolation, the FAA moment and this issue,
01:57:35but in fact everything that we're seeing over the past 24 hours and how it all starts to fit
01:57:39together. That's how Intel officers think individual pieces of Intel. What they tell
01:57:42you when you put them together? And Jesse, what I would offer is that we have a number of things
01:57:47that we could be looking at in terms of culprits, in terms of national or geopolitical issues.
01:57:51We, of course, got the war with Iran. We are, in fact, in war. The IRGC promising less than a
01:57:56month ago that they would shock the world with what they can do. That is not just saboteurs
01:58:00on the ground. That is also cyber attacks. We've already seen that, certainly in that ship that I
01:58:04mentioned, but also attacking our refrigerators on American bases, on refrigerators throughout
01:58:08Europe. And they did that in Europe as well. We also have the war with Russia or in Ukraine.
01:58:12the CIA has bases inside of Ukraine as of this very moment. We are targeting Russian individuals
01:58:18throughout Ukraine and inside of Russia itself. We are at war with Moscow. Would we expect that0.88
01:58:23the Russians might do something to us in return? Of course we would expect that, certainly in a0.95
01:58:27covert way. And then indeed we have this issue with China, don't we? We are, if not in an actual0.72
01:58:32war, we are certainly in a covert war with China, and that is all around the world, and that includes
01:58:36cyber issues. And of course, we have seen over the past five days, the NVIDIA CEO coming under
01:58:42fire very clearly has more girlfriends you can shake a stick at. One of them being a certainly0.98
01:58:47Chinese national. And we know that, of course, the Chinese recruit their own citizens either by
01:58:51will or by force. So we have this incredible penetration inside of our economy by the Chinese0.95
01:58:57and in our AI related economy. And then that's the other piece that I hope that we're all
01:59:02understanding this moment, this historic moment of the AI revolution and how it is bearing down
01:59:07on this country and indeed this world. Earlier this week, we had a number of cyber defense firms
01:59:12saying to us that they're being inundated by companies around the nation asking, can you help
01:59:17us prepare for these cyber attacks? We're getting hit. And these cyber defenders, the firemen are
01:59:22saying that we are so over inundated by these requests that we're not able to catch up. We
01:59:27You're having to turn away clients and customers.
01:59:29So is it possible that what we are seeing in Louisiana tonight, what we have seen around the country with the FAA, what we saw with Microsoft,
01:59:37we are hearing a lot of people say that it's not the AI piece, but I think that it is foolish to say that that is an impossibility.
01:59:43And instead think that it's just a bunch of old equipment.
01:59:46While that is certainly plausible, I think it's also reckless to not think about the broader threat environment in which we live.
01:59:52So that's what I would offer everybody tonight and think about one of the things that Fox News has done such a great job on is, you know, warning everybody, look, don't panic, but make sure you're prepared with governors like Ron DeSantis saying, look at our website and think about a category five hurricane hitting you.
02:00:07That's how you should be thoughtfully prepared right now.
02:00:10Think about a number of days, if not weeks, to even a couple of months to make sure that you have enough food and water and preparatory environment in your cupboards and whatnot, making sure that you're ready for any of these threats to hit the homeland.
02:00:21So that's what I would encourage us to use this moment to do as we think about all of these puzzle pieces and how they might fit together.
02:00:28It's not about panic, but it is about thoughtful preparation.
02:00:31Brian, Dean Wright, incredible analysis and great advice, to be honest with you.
02:00:37Thank you so much. A lot to think about there.
02:00:48I mean, typically people, if we were honest, don't want to be at LAX, but tonight, especially, there is a lot of confusion here, right?
02:00:54People wondering when is their flight going to take off, if it's going to take off tonight, where are they going to stay if they need to find a hotel?
02:01:01One couple we spoke with landed here from Taipei, needed to connect to Phoenix.
02:01:05That flight was canceled, so they're going to rent a car and drive to Phoenix tonight.
02:01:09A lot of tired passengers out here, and now we're joined here with Renee.
02:07:08I'm the one that just, you know, I'm the, I'm the geopolitical analyst, but you actually,
02:07:13you know, STEM and science and like all of that, like, you know, math stuff, like one
02:07:18plus one equals two and whatever right so are you sure about that yeah anyway so okay while we're
02:07:26waiting for um the press briefing from the white house um as you know i don't i don't want your
02:07:35political perspective because i'm here to give sort of the political and i mean if you want to
02:07:39give your political analysis you can but i know i don't know if you guys want to hear that
02:07:43i mean i would love to but uh um but from you know from like an aerospace engineering
02:07:51you know perspective someone who's actually worked in the aviation industry what do you
02:07:58think is going on and again this is all theory right so none of this is confirmed right now
02:08:04yeah well i mean at this point all we know is you know something related to communications um
02:08:12for air traffic control, communication is obviously very, very important. So air traffic
02:08:20control, it's, it's a largely distributed network of, um, controllers. It's, it's not just one
02:08:27person who's, you know, controlling everything in the sky. So you have things like ground control
02:08:32where, you know, uh, people are managing the movement of aircraft on taxiways and other
02:08:38controlled airport services. You have tower controllers, people in those towers that kind
02:08:45of manage the runway operations and takeoffs and landing and nearby airport traffic. And then you
02:08:51have approach and departure controllers as well. And then all these en route controllers that kind
02:08:57of help navigate the airplane as it's moving across the United States. And in the US, there
02:09:0422 regional on route control centers that are responsible for a large portion of that controlled
02:09:11airspace. So if there's any sort of impact with communication and actually being able to
02:09:18communicate with pilots and helping with all of that navigation, you know, a good first step would
02:09:25be to ground the aircraft because, you know, it would help mitigate potential risk and potential
02:09:32accidents that could be, that could be happening. So, you know, we, we've seen the reports and
02:09:41they were like, okay, the last time this happened was 9-11. And then there was something, you know,
02:09:45that was like, you know, in 2023, um, what do you think is happening right now? And I, again,
02:09:55Like, this is totally, I know that you, you know, whatever answer you give, it's all speculation at this point.
02:10:04But, you know, speaking from, like, someone who has this professional experience, and given that we've also heard that apparently there's been, like, some announcement of, like, DEFCON or something.
02:22:00I think America demands that the Congress give the rest of the resources to finish the bill.
02:22:05and I think the Congress at a point looked to the history of the FAA and said we don't trust you
02:22:13well with President Trump and what we've done I think they do trust because what we've done
02:22:20with that first tranche of money and so with a brand new state-of-the-art system you won't have
02:22:26these outages so what you experienced today but you can think back many of you covered the story
02:22:30from a year and a half ago we had outages in Newark multiple outages in Newark this is a
02:22:35continual problem that we have and it should be fixed. And so what we want to do, I've asked,
02:22:44the president's asked for $30 billion. I want $50 billion. And by the way, if you look at how
02:22:49much money congressmen, Peter, you've covered Congress, they waste a lot of money. What's
02:22:54more important than having an air traffic control system that actually works? And so the president
02:22:59has said, you know what? Let's finish this job. New hardware, new software, new telecommunication.
02:23:07Many of our towers are almost 100 years old. Our air traffic controllers have leaky roofs,
02:23:13air conditioning that doesn't work. They're high in the air. Their elevators don't work.
02:23:16Their roofs leak. I want new towers. We should also invest in many of the airports around the
02:23:23country that, frankly, many of them are embarrassing. Let's get the money. Let's invest.
02:23:28So we never have to come at 8.30 at night and have a press conference on why air travel was shut down, why we have tens of thousands of people in airports separated from their families without any knowledge of where they're going to sleep tonight.
02:23:45Now, you probably picked up that we've identified the problem.
02:23:50We've got our centers and our TRACONs operational right now.
02:23:52And so at 8.15 tonight, Eastern time, we've opened up the airspace.
02:23:58now does that mean every flight is going to fly right now it's going to be slow right so if if
02:24:04you're watching you're at an airport check with your airline it depends on do we have crews
02:24:09available do we have pilots and flight attendants available to fly your flight we're going to try
02:24:14to move as many of those as we can tonight if we have the capacity with crews to to move those
02:24:19flights if not we're going to start tomorrow morning with our airline partners moving those
02:24:25aircraft, but it's going to take us some time to unwind what's happened this afternoon. Finally,
02:24:32with general aviation, if we have aircraft that's moving six people, that's a lower priority.
02:24:41But this weekend, we have movements of aircraft that are general aviation that might have
02:24:4760, 80, 100 people on those aircraft. We are going to give those aircraft a priority.
02:24:54So hopefully tomorrow we are going to start to see a far better movement.
02:25:50There's nothing completely certain right now.
02:25:53It doesn't appear that way. We've activated our teams. This is what Department of Homeland Security
02:25:59is all about. This is why we're stood up to have the continuity of government to bring all the
02:26:04resources together in an emergency like this. This is exactly what this is. This is a national
02:26:09emergency. We have all of our assets, be it from DOW to CISA to all of our NOCs, then all the other
02:26:18components we have inside of DHS. NSA is working with us. There is nothing that indicates it yet.
02:26:24Now, when we start looking at cyber threats, cyber attacks, typically some people is going
02:26:30to raise their hand up and say, hey, we did that. There's no chatter. We haven't seen any
02:26:36footprints, as you would say, or identifications of people that got into the system.
02:26:43It appears that this was mechanically driven. However, we're still looking. So we're not going to roll that out. I want to hit back on to what Secretary Duffy said with the with the funding. This is a national security risk. We just saw what took place when we have vulnerabilities and we have old systems.
02:27:03The president has declared this a national emergency, and now we have to have Congress act and fund it.
02:27:11This is vitally important that we get this system built.
02:28:11So right now we've opened up the airspace.
02:28:16We've got our centers and our TRACONs operational.
02:28:19It would be much, and I don't want to rule out that we didn't have nefarious activity here.
02:28:24That's Mark Wayne and the cybersecurity team that works with us.
02:28:28We were able to deploy fixes to reduce the overloading on our switches that were able to bring the networks back online and our TRACons and our centers back online.
02:28:42So I think our fix gives us a pretty good indication that it was a legacy network problem that went down.
02:28:51And by the way, all of the new equipment that we put in, none of that went down.
02:28:55This is all the old legacy equipment that's existed forever.
02:28:58By the way, none of your networks run on 1980 technology.
02:29:03You all got fiber, state-of-the-art, high-speed networks that cover all of your stations, but not the FAA.
02:29:11I think the American people deserve the same kind of network that you all use, the same kind of connectivity and speed that you all use.
02:34:03I do want to announce, so by the grace of God, we have not lost one soul.
02:34:09There was 195 souls on on board. All 195 souls are accounted for. 32 are at the hospital. We're still in various conditions, but my last report was there was no critical conditions that was taking place. So just just an absolute miracle there. But once again, not connected at all. That was that was something that took place.
02:34:39In the run-up, Mr. Secretary, you are having war against Iran. Was there any input at all beyond this incident that there were Iranian elements or any other elements who may be...
02:34:53We're not saying that. We're not saying that at all. Yes.
02:34:56Thank you very much. Thank you guys for your coordination about this emergency. Speaking of college, of which industry that relies on probably again is college football. Have you guys been in communication with these universities and do you plan to implement any sort of coordination there?
02:36:02What took place where we had a ground stop?
02:36:05And when Mark Wayne and our airlines are navigating the passengers who are stranded in airports, but we work fully with them as we come back online and what planes we can move as quickly as possible to get people to their final destinations.
02:36:24And this is one of those scenarios where this is not the fault of the airline.
02:36:27But this is, again, I'm happy to blame the airlines.
02:36:31I'm happy to blame the weather, but I'm also happy to take the blame when it's with the FAA and air traffic control.
02:36:37And this is a legacy system problem that took place tonight, and we have to handle it accordingly.
02:54:09Well, that ground stop officially lifted is good news, but that doesn't mean it's less chaotic here at LAX.
02:54:14We're down by baggage claim, and this has been the most chaotic scene all night so far.
02:54:18People down here just combing through all of this.
02:54:21It's like finding a needle in a haystack, looking for their luggage.
02:54:24And many of them that we spoke to, they're looking for the luggage that went on the flights that they never got on because those flights were canceled.
02:54:31We spoke with a couple who landed from Taipei earlier.
02:54:34They had no idea what was happening when they landed.
02:54:37And then they decided that they were going to have to rent a car to drive to Phoenix because their flight was canceled.
02:54:43And now they're saying it's going to take four hours to get their bags to them.
02:54:48That's according to someone they spoke with down here at Bags Claim.
02:54:51Take a look at this line. It's also been growing and dwindling and then growing again.
02:54:56And we do have someone over here who's willing to chat with us.
02:54:58Could you talk to us about what's going on? What are you waiting in line for?
02:55:02Waiting in line to find out where my bags are.
02:56:04freaking out doesn't help patience helps so are you planning on getting on another flight to san
02:56:09diego uh we we booked a car whether it's here or not we don't know uh we're probably not going to
02:56:18go down tonight we're so we booked a hotel and hopefully we'll get down san diego tomorrow
02:56:25somehow hopefully you do thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us hope you get that
02:56:29luggage quickly yeah just one thing seems like a nice guy um yeah it's it's not such a bad thing
02:56:35when you think about the alternative of running out of fuel in the sky and falling out oh my god
02:56:42why would he bring that up something else lax has told us is that some people could catch their
02:56:47flights out tonight still sean but it's going to be a matter of uh the airlines the staffing yeah
02:56:53right quickly they can get back up in the air they say i love him as soon as he said that she
02:56:59just like turned away and then she turned to another topic because it kind of went from zero
02:57:05to a hundred real quick there real quick real quick real quick oh my gosh yeah he just went
02:57:13from like yeah it's been okay and then oh it's much better than losing our gas and running out
02:57:19of fuel in the sky and falling out yeah oh my god and then she's just like all right let's go to the
02:57:25next thing and about it i've had many conversations with sean duffy about it uh so there is a lot of
02:57:32conversation now going on there i feel like he was a veteran and sean i'm sure it was similar
02:57:37when you talked to him it didn't sound like he was panicked because of people running into his
02:57:42office with pieces of paper about the latest information their agencies had he sounded like
02:57:48somebody who had been presented with information from his top guys that this does not seem like it
02:57:55is a cyber attack. I had a chance to dive into that a little bit with the DHS secretary again
02:58:02in here in the briefing room, Mark Wayne Mullen, and ask why they don't think that this is a cyber
02:58:07attack. Because what they are describing as the cause of the instability that led to all of this
02:58:12is that some routers were overloaded with data, and then the system started to show instability.
02:58:21Routers overloaded with data sounds like something that could be the result of a cyber attack.
02:58:27The reason that they say there is not a cyber attack happening or happened earlier today is
02:58:34because they don't see the footprints and nobody has claimed responsibility, which is something
02:58:41that they would look for in the early stages of an event like this this this event though this
02:58:47evening with the transportation secretary and uh and mark wayne mullen was less about the logistics
02:58:53of the next couple hours the next couple days and it was more about trying to reassure the american
02:58:58public because the first thing mark wayne mullen said when he came in here it wasn't that the
02:59:03ground stop was ending it wasn't that it was going to take a certain number of hours or days to
02:59:09unwind this thing. He came out and the first thing he said was, this is not related to what
02:59:14happened with Microsoft. We know that there are a lot of people watching this right now,
02:59:20connecting the dots. Okay. Well, that's kind of weird. Global outage of email. A lot of weird
02:59:25things happened in the last 48 hours. FAA outage that's grounding every plane in the United States
02:59:31just a day later. We don't know exactly why they are so confident that these things are not
02:59:37think it's all connected but that's what they led with and it's it's a hard question to answer
02:59:43yeah there was a warning from sean duffy that this is going to happen again in some form
02:59:48i'll be the conspiracy theorist it's the islamic regime analog system wait i thought you said it
02:59:53was russia system full of 55 year old broken stuff uh they don't have the money to upgrade
02:59:59all of it right now they have the money to upgrade some of it it sounds like some of the
03:00:03new stuff overwhelmed the old stuff if there was not a cyber attack um but but they are using this
03:00:09as a cautionary tale they're warning that it will happen again but that they think everybody in the
03:00:15sky is still going to be safe because they've got emergency systems in place which were on display
03:00:20today even though people were in the air and they were not in constant communication uh radio and
03:00:27radar communication with the ground uh there there was some kind of a contingency that that sprung
03:00:33into place. They say that's the reason that people are going to be safe when this happens
03:00:37again. Sean. You know, but Mark Wayne did say we're not ruling anything out. And I have had
03:00:43exhaustive, long conversations with Sean Duffy, and he is describing antiquated equipment from
03:00:52the 1950s. That, Peter, to me, is unconscionable, especially when you consider the number of
03:00:59flights take off and land every single day. And it sounds like the thing that would be meant to
03:01:06assure the American public that this is not a cyber attack is, well, some of the stuff that
03:01:12we've got is too old to hack from Iran, from Russia, from North Korea, from wherever. But this
03:01:18is really, really complicated. They did say, for anybody watching who typically tunes into college
03:01:23football tomorrow, we've seen some social media reports about teams that weren't able to fly.
03:01:27They said that they're going to prioritize some of the charter flights that have dozens or hundreds of people on them, including some of the college football teams, to get them where they need to go.
03:01:38Private flights that only have five or six people on them are going to be at the bottom of the list.
03:01:43And it sounds like it could take a couple days for people that fly like that to get wherever they're going.
03:01:49John, you know, Peter, think about this. Think about a car in the 1950s and compare it to any modern day vehicle with a navigation system or any of the technology that we all have become very accustomed to.
03:02:03I press a button in my car. It'll drive me from point A to point B.
03:02:07And I don't have to do a thing. The fact that this equipment goes back to the 1950s, I cannot get over it.
03:02:14And Sean Duffy's been screaming this from the mountaintops.
03:02:18And now maybe America will pay attention to it.
03:02:20I hope so, because this could end it as a, yeah.
03:24:40So the U.S. has one of the largest and most complex aviation networks as a whole in the world.
03:24:47On a typical day, we're talking about tens of thousands of flights being flown across the country.
03:24:52And it's interesting because even though the airplanes themselves have become incredibly sophisticated and advanced in their technology, a lot of the infrastructure that's used to actually manage the aircraft hasn't been necessarily kept up.
03:25:09And so this is part of what the Trump administration has been pushing for, because this is something that they identified. And this article is from May of 2025, specifically examining the challenges that the Trump administration was facing with trying to modernize the American air traffic control system.
03:25:32um and if you scroll down goldie you'll see um you'll see somewhere where it says um
03:25:41aloha akbar jihad yeah yes and then it also says so um apparently there's um 51 out of 138 air
03:25:53traffic control systems that were assessed as of this article so this is um like over a year ago
03:25:59let me find it let me find it um just just type in like 51. yeah i'm gonna go to find i'm gonna
03:26:05type it is it just a number 51 yeah all right there we go i found it yeah so so 51 of the 138
03:26:14atc systems were assessed and were classified as being um unsustainable meaning that these
03:26:20were systems that were dealing with either aging technology or any sort of reliability issues or
03:26:27difficulties with maintaining or replacing critical infrastructure and critical components
03:26:32and in some cases we're talking about infrastructures that's been in service for
03:26:36decades so i was thinking maybe 70s but i i heard in that um new segment they were mentioning the
03:26:4150s even potentially so really really old systems um and again like in these systems you have
03:26:48specific radar installations that are detecting aircraft you have surveillance systems that are
03:26:53tracking the positioning you have radio transmitters and receivers that actually allow controllers and
03:26:59pilots to be able to communicate um and you know you have telecommunication systems that are
03:27:05connecting all of those facilities together and so some of the faa's older telecommunications
03:27:12infrastructure has also relied on some of this copper wiring that we were hearing about as well
03:27:17um and and some older technology as well rather than some modern fiber optic network networks
03:27:24that we are you know more accustomed to now for any sort of high speed data transmission
03:27:31um and yeah so so that that could be a really big issue and when infrastructure gets older
03:27:38you know spare parts become harder to obtain maintenance becomes more complicated and your
03:27:43overall systems can become more increasingly difficult to actually integrate with newer
03:27:49technology um and so you know the administration's been pushing for these upgrades and modernizations
03:27:55um raise you know they they face challenges with um with the with the funding for it um but again
03:28:03this would be a massive massive project and undertaking okay let's go back oh this is this