SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
Travelers across the country are now stranded in airports and sitting on runways after the FAA issued a total ground stop this afternoon. There are very few details about why Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy made that call. All we know at this time is that it's being attributed to communication difficulties. Here is Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin speaking at the White House just a few minutes ago.
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MARKWAYNE MULLIN: We're getting a ton of calls saying, is this a terrorist attack? Is this a terrorist attack? Everybody's safe. There is no reason to be concerned about your loved ones, if they're flying or anything like that. I just want to make sure everybody's at ease about that.
PFEIFFER: NPR White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram was there listening to Mullin when he talked to reporters, and she's with us now. Deepa, what can you tell us about what's going on?
DEEPA SHIVARAM, BYLINE: Yeah. So this all happened in the span of the last 30 minutes, I would say. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin came out to brief reporters just outside the White House, and he started off by saying that there is not a threat to the U.S., and they believe that this whole situation boils down to a telecommunications issue.
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MULLIN: There was no prior indication. There was no indication as of yet that this was a nefarious attack against us. It is just a telecommunication outage as of right now.
SHIVARAM: He was asked about his wording there, as of yet, when he said that there, you know, wasn't any indication that this was a nefarious attack. He said that they're not ruling out anything. They're still looking into the details, and they're not at a point where they can rule anything out, hence his wording, as of yet. He said that all flights are accounted for, and he was very emphatic multiple times that this was not a 9/11 situation.
MULLIN: Out of abundance of caution, we have grounded all the flights, and all the flights are accounted for. As incoming flights, either internationally or the flights that are currently still in the air - we'll be dealing with those case by case.
SHIVARAM: The secretary also said that he does not think this is affecting other countries. He did have some information that was a little unclear, though. He added that there are two places in the U.S. that were not affected by this outage, this communications outage, but he couldn't quite share more details about that. So that part of this is a little bit unclear and, I think, underscores that there's still a lot of information that's coming in.
PFEIFFER: Interesting. I guess we'll find out later whether he means continental U.S. or otherwise. We'll try to answer that question for our listeners later. Did he give any details about what steps are underway to try to resolve this?
SHIVARAM: Yeah. So he said the first thing officials are working on is trying to restore communications to the full extent, make sure that all flights are on the ground. But no specific timeline was given here, Sacha. He was asked if this whole process was going to be, you know, a matter hours. Are people going to be stuck on tarmacs? Is it going to take days, months? He didn't really have an exact answer to that. All he said is that it's going to take some time. And he said this isn't going to be turned around within the hour. It's just going to take some time, and that part is still a little bit unclear as well.
PFEIFFER: Deepa, as I've been reading about this over the past 30 minutes, I saw some reporting that said there was some new system, possibly an AI-driven system, that was rolled out earlier this week by the FAA. Do you know anything?
SHIVARAM: Yeah. So at at this stage, the secretary said that this outage today is not connected to this AI system, and I'll just explain that really quickly. The FAA rolled out an AI air traffic tool nationwide earlier this week, and that tool is built to help assist with air traffic management. It was already piloted in D.C., actually, in September, and then this week, it was applied nationwide. The secretary said, though, that at this stage, they don't think those two things are connected. He also was asked about the Microsoft outage that happened yesterday and if there was any possible connection to that and what's going on today. And he said he didn't see any reason to connect those two situations.
PFEIFFER: Has President Trump weighed in on this at all?
SHIVARAM: We have not heard from the president yet. I have been refreshing his social media feed to try and see if we will hear from him imminently. He has been briefed on this, and the secretary said that, you know, everybody's involved with this right now. It takes the FAA, obviously. The transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, has been speaking with the president, the State Department. He called the situation unprecedented when you have something like this going on. I will say, in terms of Trump's travel plans, he is expected to stay in Washington this weekend, so no imminent travel for him, but he is planning on Monday to depart for Asia, where he'll be going to the Philippines and China for two summits.
PFEIFFER: You know, Deepa, I am supposed to fly tonight. I'm now bracing...
SHIVARAM: Oh.
PFEIFFER: ...Myself for probably not being...
SHIVARAM: My goodness.
PFEIFFER: ...Able to fly tonight. So I have so many questions. And I have a few I want to ask you that you actually may not know. Please feel free to say, I don't know.
SHIVARAM: Yeah.
PFEIFFER: We know they're grounded, and you touched on this, but do we know if planes that are actually in the air are going to be brought down, they have to get out of the air? Or that's a case-by-case situation?
SHIVARAM: Yeah. So that's, like, kind of a split ticket right now. The secretary did say that they're working on getting all flights grounded. So I think that's something that's in the process of happening. The split ticket that I referred to, I think, when it comes to international flights that are incoming - that is being treated as a case-by-case basis.
PFEIFFER: And in terms of where the planes who might have to come down quickly have to go, that's...
SHIVARAM: Yeah.
PFEIFFER: ...Just the challenge that air traffic controllers deal with. How do we get them down? Where do we put them?
SHIVARAM: Yes. So when they talk about this communications outage, I believe that the secretary said they're still able to communicate with certain planes that are in the air and things like that. And so the process of getting everybody on the ground sounds like it's obviously very complicated. The specifics on which communications elements here are, you know, up in the air, for lack of a better word and unclear - that part is sort of just broadly being spoken as a widespread telecommunications issue.
PFEIFFER: So I imagine a lot of people stuck in airports, a lot stuck in tarmacs. If people are trying to decide whether to go to the airport, maybe call your airline, but I'm sure they're overwhelmed by calls right now.
SHIVARAM: Yes. It sounds like the information is a little unclear, especially when it comes to grounding flights versus departing flights. I don't think there's been guidance that's been issued on that quite yet.
PFEIFFER: Thank you for that. That's NPR White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram.
SHIVARAM: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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