At 2:48 p.m. Central, the social media team for the No. 6 Texas Longhorns posted a video of players boarding the chartered plane heading to Baton Rouge for Saturday’s matchup against the No. 21 LSU Tigers.
Minutes after the video was posted, the Federal Aviation Administration issued an extraordinarily rare nationwide ground stop for all US airports due to a “temporary telecommunications outage,” only the second ground stop issued by the FAA since September
11, 2001.
“Out of an abundance of caution all flights have been halted. Every flight has been accounted for and international flights will be handled on a case by case basis,” the FAA posted on Twitter.
Unable to depart for Baton Rouge, the Longhorns deplaned and headed back to campus in an attempt to maintain the typical Friday routine of a meal, walk-through, and meetings.
With the ground stop threatening the team’s ability to make it to Louisiana for the 6:30 p.m. Central kickoff at Tiger Stadium, there was enough pessimism around the 7 p.m. hour for a report to emerge from Chip Brown at Horns247 that the game time could shift to Sunday or Monday.
Brown posted his story to Twitter at 7:14 p.m. Central; approximately a minute later, the FAA lifted the ground stop and an official announcement was posted about 15 minutes later.
“At 8:15 tonight, Eastern time, we’ve opened up the airspace,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a news briefing. “Now does that mean every flight is going to fly right now? It’s going to be slow. So if you’re watching, you’re at an airport, check with your airline.”
As a chartered flight, Texas may have better luck, and Eric Henry’s report from Horns247 indicated that the Longhorns will depart from Austin on Friday night.
Duffy publicly encouraged grounded football teams across the country to reach out directly to the FAA to schedule flight times to allow Saturday’s games to happen as scheduled. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin blamed the outage on upgrades patched onto the FAA’s old systems.
Just before 8 p.m. Central, the Horns remained on the Forty Acres and hopeful to leave Austin on Friday.
Stay tuned for more updates on this developing story.
