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Fire at Newark International Airport Causes Delays

Aired September 10, 2001 - 14:01   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LOU WATERS, CNN ANCHOR? We are watching that fire in New Jersey at the Newark International Airport. We showed you a little bit ago the fire at a building under construction. It's being put out, which is causing delays at the airport.

We're checking with Orelon Sidney, who's keeping track of airplane schedules and things.

Orelon, what's the deal with the delays?

ORELON SIDNEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It looks like right now, we have ground stop for the Newark airport. What that means is that traffic from certain airports is not allowed to land. The affected airports so far are LaGuardia and JFK. Of course, Those are two majors -- probably the major airports in the northeast. Air traffic from those two locations will not be allowed to land at Newark.

I don't have any information on the duration of this particular ground stop, but it does indicate the reason is a fire at the airport. So until this fire situation is cleared -- probably has a lot to do with visibility, just my guess.

Until this fire situation is cleared, we will see traffic being held up at the departure airports once they're headed in toward Newark -- Lou.

WATERS: The only question I would have about that, and you perhaps can't answer it, if visibility is low for some, why not low for all?

SIDNEY: The guess I make at this point, just looking at some of the winds out there, it may be a situation where the winds are blowing in more of a direction towards New York City, LaGuardia, JFK, whereas traffic from the west might be able to land. Again, this is just a guess. There's already a problem at LaGuardia that they have some thunderstorms en route to certain airports as well. So when you put that all together, probably that's probably the reason why you're going to see delays from those particular airports, and not those from the south or from the west.

WATERS: OK, Orelon, Thanks. We'll keep an eye on this. If you have loved one passing through Newark Airport today and their late, you'll know why.

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