Hundreds of canceled at Chicago O'Hare, Midway airports on Saturday after nationwide ground stop lifted
Travelers will finally start getting to their destinations on Saturday after an hours-long FAA nationwide ground stop forced airlines to cancel hundreds of flights at Chicago O'Hare International Airport and Midway International Airport.
As of Saturday morning around 7 a.m., airlines had canceled over 400 flights at O'Hare and nearly 60 flights at Midway, with nearly 200 flights delayed.
Video from inside of Terminal 1 at O'Hare Airport shows long lines as passengers attempt to get on new flights on Saturday morning.
The FAA and White House said the issue appeared to be caused by a "telecommunication outage."
The nationwide ground stop was lifted around 7:30 p.m. Chicago time.
Travelers stuck at O'Hare overnight told CBS News Chicago getting their bags has been one of the biggest issues.
"We were stuck on the tarmac for about four hours and its been about three hour since I've been looking for my bag and i found it," Samantha Suretha, a passenger from Houston, said. "I hit the jackpot."
Another passanger said she was stuck on a plane for four hours. She called the experience "misrable" waiting for her checked bag.
Everything is back up and running and a Trump transportation admin officials said while it's safe to fly, the nation must address this aging and outdated system or these types of "hiccups" could happen again.
FAA issues nationwide ground stop, a rare order
Nationwide ground stops are exceedingly rare, and the most notorious one was issued after the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. But officials said Friday's ground stop was not akin to what happened on 9/11, as airplanes were not being told to land immediately at the first available airport.
Instead, this ground stop was due to problems affecting the in-route communication system: the high-altitude tracking that is done at 20 air traffic control centers across the country as well as in Alaska and Hawaii.
Passengers in the air were not in any danger during the ground stop, officials said, and there was no national security threat.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin emphasized as he spoke to reporters Friday evening that this was a telecommunications outage affecting the ability for air traffic controllers and planes to communicate. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the ground stop was issued "out of an abundance of caution."
Mullin also said they do not have indications that what happened was the result of a cyberattack.
Even though main radio communications went down, planes were not without the ability to communicate at all. Planes, air traffic controllers, and airports use the ACARS system, which stands for Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, and has been in place since the 1970s. ACARS is essentially a VHF-based text messaging system for aircraft that allows them to send messages back and forth without using voice communication frequencies.
It's not just pilots who can use ACARS; flight crews can also use it to communicate with their airline master command centers and help get information to passengers in the air and on the ground.
