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FAA Lifts Ground Stop; Flights Resume in Atlanta; Flights Resume in Newark; FAA NOTAM System Problem; California Battered by Storms; Search for Missing Massachusetts Mom. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired January 11, 2023 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:53]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Good Wednesday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Erica Hill.

We are following the breaking news this morning.

After U.S. flights were grounded, the FAA now lifting that ground stop. U.S. flights resuming here. There is, though, as you can imagine, a huge mess unfolding at airports across this country and, frankly, around the world.

A key FAA safety system went down earlier this morning. That led to some scrambling from coast to coast. Though the -here's where we stand at this hour. The FAA says it is set to resume more flight departures this hour. But in terms of the backlog, the damage that we're seeing there, the delays, the cancellations, understandably rising by the minute.

SCIUTTO: Yes, got to be a lot of relief now if your flight has taken off.

In New York, lines are growing, In Atlanta and Chicago, delay warnings taking over departure screens. They may be the lucky ones stuck in the airports that have already in their seats. That's what's happening in London, where passengers say they have been stuck on the tarmac for hours waiting to take off. The president has been briefed, says the FAA is still working to find out exactly what caused the outage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I just spoke with Buttigieg. They don't know what the cause is. But was on the phone (INAUDIBLE). I told him to report directly to me when they find out. Air traffic can still land safely, just not take off right now. They don't know what the cause of it is. They expect (INAUDIBLE) in a couple hours they'll have a (INAUDIBLE) and we'll respond at that time.

QUESTION: Sir, why do you have your team -

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE) cyberattack? BIDEN: We don't know.

QUESTION: OK.

BIDEN: But we'll find out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: CNN aviation correspondent Pete Muntean has the very latest from Reagan National Airport.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Jim and Erica, the FAA has just lifted this nationwide ground stop that was anticipated to be lifted at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time. They lifted it a little bit early because of this major meltdown behind the scenes. It's NOTAM system. That stands for Notice to Air Missions, formerly Notice to Airmen. That is the system that puts out essentially a bulletin board of critical information that pilots need to read before they take off. Things like whether or not runways are opened or closed, whether or not key navigational aids that pilots needs are in working order. The fact that the FAA lifted this early is really critical, but we know from the history of what airlines go through and the aviation system goes through that there will likely be a domino effect here.

An airline source telling me that the airlines may put into place their own ground delay programs, meaning that they will delay flights on their own, issuing that order to the FAA, and then the FAA putting it out systemwide because of the fact that planes and crews are out of position because this delay has lasted so long nationwide.

Think about this, the planes are in the wrong spots. The crews are in the wrong spots, And they are mandated by federal regulations that makes them essentially time out if they have been on the clock for a certain period of time. So even though this ground stop is over, the delays may linger here and that is the big question as we go forward, Jim and Erica.

HILL: Yes, absolutely.

Pete Muntean, appreciate it. Thank you.

Also with us, CNN anchor and correspondent Amara Walker, who's at Atlanta's Hartsfield Jackson International Airport, Athena Jones is at Newark International.

Amara, I want to start with you.

Look, we often talk about Atlanta as the world's busiest airport. What are you hearing from airlines and from passengers there?

AMARA WALKER, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's been pretty muted here and I think that's because it's not such a busy travel day. I did talk to several passengers, most of them dealing with flight delays. I spoke with one woman who was flying Southwest. She had a flight that was supposed to leave at 8:55. That got delayed until noon. And then she got on to another flight for 2:00 p.m. And that got delayed until 6:00 p.m. So she said, forget it, I'm not going to wait around here hoping that the system glitch is fixed quickly. So, she decided to go home and wait it out.

I also spoke with a young man who is supposed to be in New York today. His flight was supposed to be at 10:00 this morning and it got delayed, which means that he will be missing a very important family gathering.

Listen to what he had to say.

[09:05:02]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was supposed to be like 11:00 or 12:00 when we land, and now it's going to be 2:00, and we're missing the first wake for a funeral.

WALKER: You're missing a funeral?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, ma'am. Right now.

WALKER: So what are you going to do when you get on the ground?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean that's - hope -- today there's two, luckily. So, that's where we're going to go, to the second one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALKER: Yes, just a bad situation for him. He's actually still waiting out here with his two-year-old nephew.

So, the FAA says, and this is some good news, about a half an hour ago that flights have begun resuming here at Atlanta International Airport. We don't know what that means for the backlog and if that will continue to cause some delays here. But if you look at the departure board here behind me, yes, there are several delays, just a few cancellations. But, of course, the advice is that everyone who is flying today to call their airlines or at least check the flight status before they head out.

Back to you.

SCIUTTO: Athena Jones, she's at Newark, one of the other busiest airports, where they were lucky enough, I suppose, they were one of the first to get things going again. I wonder how quickly are things building -- picking up there or is it going to take a lot of time?

ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Jim.

Well, things are -- the activity around this terminal has picked up quite a bit since last hour when we last reported. You can see a lot more people stepping up to these kiosks, not just international flights, which were not being affected earlier on, but folks flying to Miami or Fort Lauderdale are now able to check in. And immediately right here they'll find out if their flight is delayed. We've spoken to folks at Spirit Airline. You can see the counters, the

lines filling up. This was not - there was no one here an hour ago. Almost no one standing in line to check in. And the folks at Spirit tell us that most of their flights are -- they're showing some delays, but most of their flights are getting back on track.

You heard Pete Muntean mention that the domino effect, the ripple effect of some of these earlier flights causing future delays. Some of the folks we spoke to said they're delayed a couple of hours. And the boards are showing that as well. An hour, two-hour delays.

We do know from Flight Aware, as of the last maybe 15 minutes ago, the last update from Flight Aware, more than 4,000 delays, nearly 700 cancellations. And so while things are beginning to get back to normal here, there is clearly going to be an impact.

And I want to show you some video of what passengers have been experiencing this morning as this - the FAA tries to deal with this issue. This is from State College, Pennsylvania. Listen -- watch this and listen to the PA announcement and how passengers have been kind of -- what they've been having to deal with this morning. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are also not rebooking because that means all flights, even your connecting flights, are all going to be not departing or not starting to move until that time. This is a nationwide issue. It's not just a local issue. And, again, the airline (ph) is going to offer some snacks up front here. Help yourself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: So, that's in State College, Pennsylvania.

But here in Newark, things are beginning to get back to normal. And as you mentioned, this was one of the first airports right here at Newark and also Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson, where you just saw Amara, the first airports to kind of get - get flights going again because of the backlog that was present (ph). So, we're definitely going to see more delays here.

But in terms of people being able to check in and at least hopefully, by the end of the day, get to their destination, that - that has now resumed here at Newark.

Erica, Jim.

HILL: Yes, fingers crossed.

Athena, Amara, appreciate it. Thank you, both.

Of course, the issue when those flights don't come in, then they can't go out, which can add to this chain reaction, as we know.

CNN aviation safety analyst, former FAA safety inspector, David Soucie joining us now in the conversation. So, David, just - let's step back for a minute. We don't know the

exact cause at this point. But this system that we've been talking about all morning, this NOTAM system, just walk us through what it does and why it is so important for pilots.

DAVIS SOUCIE, FORMER FAA SAFETY INSPECTOR: Well, what it does is it centralizes all of the information that a pilot might need, any kind of things that are abnormal in the system. It doesn't tell them, hey, the 'stem is ready to go. It says, if you're going from Denver to D.C., then anything that's in between there, you could have cranes that are in a local area around an airport, you might have any kind of information about construction at the airports, you might have anything in between there that might affect your flight. But the important thing to point out is that it only points out the abnormal things. It doesn't say the system's good to go.

So, here's the problem. So, if you don't have any -- if something abnormal happens and you don't get that notice, then you don't know if it's safe or not. So that's why the FAA made a precautionary effort to say, look, there's other ways to get this information, but this is how everyone realize -- everyone relies on the NOTAM system. Always have. And in my 30, 40 years in aviation, I've never known this system to go down. So, I think this is a significant problem right now.

SCIUTTO: So, to that point, David, what vulnerabilities in this system could this expose? And, again, we're early. They haven't figured out what brought it down. But the idea that a system like this could bring basically the whole air transportation system down and very quickly, listen, that's worrisome.

[09:10:05]

SOUCIE: Yes, it's very worrisome. And even more so worrisome, Jim, to me is, I just went on to check my NOTAMs because we use these for pilots with - all the way up and down the row. I mean even the - even drone pilots use this NOTAM system to see what's going on in any particular operational area. So, here's what bothers me. The FAA says, yes, it's OK, go ahead and fly. However, when I go to the NOTAM search and look at it right now, it says, due to system processing delays recently entered NOTAMs may not be displayed. And then it has you confirm that you read it. It says, yes, I read this. I know that.

So, what it's done is shifted the responsibility now over to the pilots and the dispatchers. So, we're going to continue to see delays because they're going to now have to check every airport, every route, 25 miles both left and right on that route to see if there's anything that might affect that flight.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

SOUCIE: So it - this -- there's going to be continued delays.

HILL: So, David, we - you know, early on this morning as we were watching - because we saw that -- we've heard from passengers in London sitting on the tarmac for three hours, but we know of flights that were taking off from Europe. I mean, full disclosure, my mom is in the air right now. She took off from New Haven just before 7:00 this morning. There was no notice when she was in the airport. No notice when she was on the planes. So pilots can fly without this information.

What does that mean, though, when they're in the air? Who is communicating with them? Is it just the air traffic control towers?

SOUCIE: Yes, it's - that's - I'm -- your mom is safe, first of all. Let's say that.

HILL: Yes.

SOUCIE: Because when the pilots take off, what they can do, rather than rely on the NOTAMs, which is a centralized database for anything that's abnormal, they can also do their own checks. They can reach out to the airports, look at the individual airports to see what's going on at the receiving airport, or any alternate airports that they might have selected, and they can also do some end route information as well, but it's very time consuming. So, once they do that, the big shift here is the fact that the pilots themselves and the dispatcher are taking on that responsibility to make sure that there's no abnormal situations.

So, the chances are that with your mom, and I'm 100 percent certain of this -

HILL: Yes.

SOUCIE: That the pilots would not have taken off if they weren't sure that it was safe to do so.

HILL: And -

SCIUTTO: Listen, I'm glad your mom's safe. That's important. And it's good for folks who might be flying now who might say, wait a second, should I be taking off, you know, right now in light of this.

HILL: Right. Yes.

SCIUTTO: David, you know, there's a lot of talk with a lot of these systems, legacy systems, that do air traffic control, et cetera, some of them are old. Some of them, you know, aren't quite up to date. I mean is -- does this expose -- this system as well needs an upgrade, modernization?

SOUCIE: Most definitely, Jim. I -- you know, this system is immeasurably complex and it gets bigger and bigger and more and more overloaded. So, what happens is, people think there's plateaus in technological advancements, and I think that we're stuck at a plateau here.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

SOUCIE: I know that there's still air traffic control equipment that was in use back in the '60s that's still at these air traffic control centers. So, that's one thing. But this -- these type of systems that are data driven, that just include data, not operational day to day, but store data and report data, those types of systems, there's so many more advances now that could be taken advantage of, but because of budget constraints and what the FAA can and cannot do, it's really put a burden on there. So, your technology is advancing as far as the volume is advancing very rapidly, but the technology is having a hard time keeping up and the people that run that technology, that's the most difficult thing because technology moves much faster than the human brain can adapt to it. So that's one of the things that we really concern ourselves with.

HILL: Yes.

SCIUTTO: That's a lot of reminders of these systems and how kind of fragile they are, right? You have this and the Southwest meltdown over the holidays and a lot of folks traveling pay the price.

Well, I'm glad Erica's mom is safe. That's important.

David Soucie, good to have you on.

HILL: That's because Jim those how much my mom loves Jim Sciutto.

SCIUTTO: So -

HILL: But in all seriousness, that is important.

SOUCIE: Thanks, Jim and Erica.

HILL: And, Jim, I think your point's about - about cybersecurity questions and safety there with the software are key as well.

SCIUTTO: Yes, so it doesn't happen again.

Well, we'll keep on top of this story as we get any updates on additional delays as airlines try to catch up from this outage. If you're watching and you're out there traveling, we'll bring you all the information as we know it.

Also ahead, President Biden says he was surprised to learn that classified documents were found by his attorneys in one of his offices here in D.C.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: People know I take classified documents and classified information seriously.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: How he says it happened and what we know about the kinds of U.S. intelligence contained in those documents.

HILL: We are also following another disturbing turn in the case of the missing mom of three in Massachusetts. Sources telling CNN police have found a hacksaw and blood-stained cloth at a trash facility they were searching.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:18:57]

HILL: Right now, in California, rain continues to hammer parts of the state. Dozens of communities are dealing with this massive flooding, with mudslides. Oh, these pictures.

SCIUTTO: It's amazing. And to be clear, there's a human toll here. So far the storms have killed at least 17 people.

CNN's Camila Bernal has more on the devastating effects of the storm.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CAMILA BERNAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): California needs water, but not like this. Creeks turning into raging rivers, mudslides barreling through neighborhoods, and sinkholes swallowing cars.

JASON HOPPIN, PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER, SANTA CRUZ COUNTY: These storms hit us like a water balloon exploding and just dropped water down through our rivers and creeks. So, it's been this excessive amount of flooding.

BERNAL: Blast after blast of torrential rain and wind gusts exceeding 70 miles per hour on California's central coast.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're soaked. This place is soaked.

BERNAL: Santa Cruz County Tuesday was in cleanup mode after the most recent storm.

CAITLIN CLANCY, RESIDENT OF FELTON GROVE, CALIFORNIA: And it's just from water everywhere and it's just rushing through.

[09:20:03]

It was going fast. We had a canoe strapped up that we thought if we needed to we could canoe out, but it was moving too fast.

BERNAL: Rachel Oliviera has lived here for 20 years. Her neighborhood and home now covered in mud.

RACHEL OLIVIERA, RESIDENT OF FELTON GROVE, CALIFORNIA: It's back- breaking labor. And, you know, a lot of us that live here in the neighborhood are elderly and can't actually physically do the cleanup.

BERNAL: There's been little rest for emergency workers. Dozens rescued in Santa Cruz earlier this week. And a similar story has played out across much of the state.

In Los Angeles, Union Station flooded. And to the north, in Santa Barbara County, crews responding to more than 200 incident calls.

And it's not over. Forecasters say four more storms are expected to strike California over the next ten days.

OLIVIERA: You know, more rain, more flood, more mud, more cleanup.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERNAL: And a lot of cleanup is expected today, whether you're in the mud and having to deal with all of that and the debris or whether you're having to deal with the water. There's still a lot of standing water. As you can see here in this neighborhood, a lot of the residents telling me, look, it usually drains if it floods, but that is not the case this time around. So, they're having to deal with all this water driving through flooded streets. And the county telling me they're assessing the homes that have been damaged. There's at least 135, more or less, that have significant damage. They say those numbers are likely going to go up as they continue making those assessments throughout the day.

Erica.

HILL: Wow, it is -- I mean there is so much cleanup there. And that, of course, just one community. We're seeing this across the state.

Camila, appreciate it. Thank you.

SCIUTTO: This morning, more stunning discoveries in the disturbing case of the missing Massachusetts mother of three, Ana Walshe. Law enforcement sources tell CNN that investigators found a hacksaw, torn up cloth material and what appears to be blood stains while combing through a trash facility they were searching. Earlier in the week, investigators put crime scene tape outside and around dumpsters located in an apartment complex in Swampscott, Massachusetts. That near the home of the mother of Walshe's husband Brian. He is being held on a felony charge of misleading a police investigation.

Joining me now to discuss is attorney and legal affairs commentator Areva Martin.

Areva, very good morning to you.

AREVA MARTIN, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: Good morning, Jim.

SCIUTTO: So, first, when you look at the collection of evidence so far, he's being held but purely for misleading police. But since then we've learned he bought cleaning materials, nearly $500 worth, the day after she disappeared. He was doing internet searches for how to dispose of a body. And now this. They're clearly searching this disposal area here. And they found some things that could be connected to the case. Do you see investigators moving in the direction here of charging him?

MARTIN: A lot of moving parts at this time, Jim. Obviously, prosecutors can file murder charges even in the absence of a body, but it makes it very difficult to get a conviction in cases like that. They have to rely on circumstantial evidence. And the circumstantial evidence here looks bad for Mr. Walshe, but it doesn't establish, first of all, that there's even a dead body. The blood could suggest that there was some kind of domestic violence, some kind of altercation that resulted in someone bleeding out, but it doesn't establish that Mrs. Walshe is actually dead. So, I think that's the dilemma that the prosecutors have at this time. Do they wait and try to find her or find a body because we know there's no statute of limitations with respect to a murder charge.

SCIUTTO: Yes. So I wonder, from a legal perspective, is it that they might be able to get an indictment here but they're trying to build a case, again, if it gets there, for conviction, right? I mean aware of that very challenge you're discussing there, which is that without a body it's much harder to get there.

MARTIN: Yes. And as you know, Jim, the prosecution has the burden of proof of proving its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

MARTIN: And that's a pretty high burden. It's a pretty high legal standard. And without a body, again, they're going to be forced to rely on circumstantial evidence. Obviously they have the forensic evidence, in this case the blood. They have what may be a weapon that was used with respect to any kind of harm that was done to her. But the question remains, is she just missing? Is this someone that was involved in some kind of altercation with her husband and walked away?

Now, not likely given that she's the mother of three small kids. This type of activity, based on what we've heard from her mother, is unusual. But the prosecutors have a lot of work to do to try to establish, again, is this just a case of someone who is missing or was she actually murdered?

[09:25:03]

SCIUTTO: These are all important provisos. It's early in the investigation. We shouldn't be jumping to any conclusions here.

Tell us what the defense strategy would be at this point.

MARTIN: Yes, the defense obviously is going to take the position that there's no evidence that she is dead. And that without a dead body, without someone who's actually deceased, you can't bring murder charges. They may, in some cases like this, we see people hire their own investigator to try to find the individual. Again, letters written to the court, not involving this case, but involving the fraud case that Mr. Walshe was charged for, for selling a fraudulent artwork, she wrote pretty compelling and warm letters to the judge talking about her husband in very kind and favorable words. So, the last evidence that we have of sorts relating to the condition of their relationship doesn't suggest that this was someone who was afraid of her husband, who thought ill of her husband. The letters, in fact, suggest to the judge that she thought very highly of her husband.

So, the defense is going to be point to that letter as evidence that this is not a marriage in turmoil.

SCIUTTO: Understood. You're referencing, of course, the case he had prior to this related to fraud, unrelated to her disappearance.

Areva Martin, good to have you on.

MARTIN: Thanks, Jim.

HILL: We are staying on top of the breaking news this morning. The FAA lifting its ground stop after a major outage. The airlines, though, say the delays, buckle up, those could continue throughout the day as they're trying to catch up here from thousands of delays.

We've got the very latest.

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[09:30:00]