SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
We are following the story of a total ground stop across the country. No airplanes are taking off, and passengers are stranded in airports, waiting for news about what comes next. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement that there has been a communications issue affecting regional air traffic control centers. Now, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin spoke from the White House driveway last hour. He said there is no indication at this time that the outage is the result of a, quote, "nefarious attack." Tom Lintner, a former air traffic controller at LaGuardia, was also head of air traffic investigations with the FAA, and he joins us now. Welcome back to the show. Thank you.
TOM LINTNER: Hey, Scott.
DETROW: So, Tom, we spoke to you right when this first started to break. You happened to meet (ph) near Dulles Airport outside D.C. And you said at that point that you did not see any unusual traffic patterns in terms of the planes up in the air. And I'm wondering, did that change at all over the last few hours? Have you seen anything unusual when it comes to the planes already in the sky?
LINTNER: No. No, Scott, except for the fact that there are no departures. And during the time we talked before, it was the normal arrival bank. Most of the European traffic was coming in, so that slowed down a little bit. But otherwise, that's the only change.
DETROW: So I imagine that's pretty comforting - right? - that they're not trying to get every plane down on the ground. That indicates some, you know...
LINTNER: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
DETROW: ...Confidence in terms of communications with planes up there. Tell me about the last time that there was a ground stoppage back in 2023, right? What happened then?
LINTNER: Well, back in 2023, Scott, what occurred was the NOTAM system - it's a communication system that provides information back and forth between air traffic control facilities and pilots - went out of service. And when that went out of service, out of an abundance of caution, the FAA restricted all departures for about 90 minutes until that data - it's a source of data on each individual flight or things that could influence the flight - was restored, and then it came back to normal. That, to my knowledge, was the only other time, other than 9/11, when there was a nationwide ground stop.
DETROW: Now, the FAA, in the couple terse sentences they've issued, has called this a communications problem. Any sense of what they could be talking about here?
LINTNER: That's a broad categorization. And one of the things that takes place is there's a lot of communication that has to go on between air traffic control facilities on the ground to support flights in the air. So it's not just the ability to communicate between air traffic control and the aircraft. It's also between air traffic controllers and air traffic control facilities. That's all done by telco lines. So, you know, I don't know, based upon the information that's been reported so far, whether it's involving both air to ground or ground to ground, although I suspect from the reports, it's isolated to just, you know, ground communications between air traffic control facilities, not between the controllers and aircraft.
DETROW: OK. And I want to mention - no indication that this is connected, but a lot of people are looking at the timing. The FAA had just announced that it was expanding the use of an AI tool to help manage air traffic. It's called SMART. Again, the officials are saying this is a communications issue. I'm curious what you and your peers are thinking about this new expansion of AI with air traffic control and whether you think this could be connected.
LINTNER: You know, that's a challenging question, Scott. I don't think you can rule anything out at this particular point in time. The SMART system, as I understand it, is a software system. It's going on to air traffic systems. I understand that they rolled it out yesterday. So, you know, anytime you have a software upgrade, there is the possibility of something going wrong. That applies, I think, to software across the board, not just AI. So I don't think it can be ruled out yet.
DETROW: OK. Well, Tom Lintner, a former air traffic controller at the LaGuardia who was also head of air traffic investigations with the FAA, thank you for talking another kind of ATC with us here at ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. Thank you so much.
LINTNER: Scott, have a great night.
DETROW: You too. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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