An uncommon ground stop was given to certain pilots for a brief timeframe following a North American Aerospace Defense Command alert of a launch of a North Korean missile, a US official said Tuesday.
The authority says it was anything but a national ground stop and may have been given by a regional air traffic control facility.
“No warning was issued by NORAD HQ,” in regards to a possible threat to the US, as indicated by Captain Pamela Kunze, the chief NORAD representative.
The Federal Aviation Administration, answerable for the country’s air traffic control system, said the ground stop was to decide in favor safety.
“As a matter of precaution, the FAA temporarily paused departures at some airports along the West Coast on Monday evening,” the FAA said in a statement. “Full operations resumed in less than 15 minutes. The FAA regularly takes precautionary measures. We are reviewing the process around this ground stop as we do after all such events.”
The NORAD representative said the normal sequence following the launch was followed: The missile launch was recognized, and it was evaluated not to be a danger to the mainland United States. The standard practice is for FAA to have a steady contact in the NORAD operations center, accordingly would have known about the speedy appraisal.
LiveATC air traffic control recordings of the Burbank Airport in California detail a regulator telling a Southwest flight “there’s ground stops all departures, all airports right now. The message we got is it’s until further notice.”
One more recording of the control tower frequency in Hillsboro, Oregon, catches the regulator advising the pilot of a Cessna to land, saying “we just got a notice that we need to do a national ground stop.”
A representative for the San Diego International Airport told CNN the air terminal “was told via Air Traffic Control that there was a public ground stop however not long after (5-7 minutes) our tasks group was told it was lifted.”
Other West Coast air terminals reached by CNN said they knew nothing about the order.
It isn’t clear why the ground stop was set up in light of the fact that a statement from US Forces Korea said the test represented no danger to US or South Korean region or military staff, yet “the missile launch highlights the destabilizing impact of (North Korea’s) illicit weapons program.”
North Korea led what is believed to be a long range rocket test around 07:27 am neighborhood time Tuesday (5:27pm ET Monday), the rocket was sent off structure inland and voyaged east and falling into the ocean.
US Strategic Command and NORAD utilizes satellites and radar to follow each rocket send off around the globe and can rapidly survey whether a send off represents a danger to the United States.
North Korea isn’t openly known to have sent a solid long-range rocket with a dependable capacity to arrive at the West Coast, authorities have told CNN before, however North Korea has kept on fostering their program remembering progress for their long-range long range rockets.
