How long were planes grounded after 911?

Answer 1

A nationwide ground stop -- where no commercial, military or private airliner is allowed to take off and all planes in the air are required to land as soon as safely possible -- was unprecedented. The FAA had previously implemented mini-stops for specific airports, cities or regions because of weather or safety concerns, but to intervene in air traffic on such a wide scale was unheard-of. On its own and before the FAA got involved on the morning of the hijackings, the president of American Airlines had ordered the groundings of all American and American Eagle planes on the East Coast; shortly afterward, when he learned that United Airlines was also missing a plane, he halted American service nationwide. United executives quickly followed suit.

CLEARING THE SKIES

After the FAA declared its ground stop, it had to figure out what to do with all the planes that were already in the air. It sent notices to pilots, called NOTAMS, instructing them to find the nearest airport and land their planes as quickly as possible. As a result, Southwest Airlines sent planes to Denver, an airport it never used, and huge JetBlue jets bound for New York City landed in tiny airports in upstate New York.

At 10:31 a.m., FAA Administrator Jane Garvey sent a message to all international flights headed to the United States Turn around or land someplace else. That someplace else, in most cases, was Canada. Garvey worked with officials at NAVCanada, the semi-private organization in charge of Canadian air traffic, to devise a plan. Four hundred planes were already high above the Atlantic on their way to the United States. About 200 of those were not yet halfway across the ocean, so they turned around and headed back to Europe; the others were redirected. Many of these (38 flights, carrying about 6,600 people) landed at the Gander Airport in Nova Scotia. Others, instructed to stay away from Canada's largest cities, landed in Deer Lake, St. John, Goose Bay, Moncton, Mirabal and other towns. Some of these planes had to dump fuel into the ocean so they would be light enough to land; others, by contrast, were running low on fuel and caused a panic by telling NAVCanada controllers that they, too, had been hijacked. That way, their pilots thought, they would get landing priority. At the same time, 34 diverted planes from Asia were landing in Vancouver. By about 6 p.m. EST, the skies were finally clear.

FLYING WITH NEW RULES

On September 12, the FAA slowly began to lift the ground stop. Planes that had been rerouted the day before were allowed to continue to their final destinations. Military and law-enforcement flights had resumed the day before, along with, according to Time magazine, "some flights that the FAA cannot reveal that were already airborne". In general, though, the stop remained in effect until the FAA could come up with a new set of safety rules and regulations. The rules, which Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta announced at 2 a.m. on September 13, prohibited (among other things):

• knives, box cutters and other sharp objects on planes or in airports
• curbside or online check-in
• passing through security or going to a gate without a paper boarding pass

By September 14, 424 of 455 airports in the United States met the new standards, including all three of the major airports in the New York area (JFK, LaGuardia and Newark). Boston's Logan International Airport and Washington's Reagan National Airport remained closed -- Logan until the September 15 and Reagan, according to an FAA directive, "temporarily, indefinitely." It finally reopened on October 4. Even by the next week, air traffic was still not back to normal: crop dusters and other agricultural planes could fly but training flights were still banned, as were flights towing banners, sightseeing planes and traffic and news helicopters. Foreign airlines could depart from U.S. airports but not fly into them.

Answer 2

After the attacks, no planes were allowed in the air for a week. The only aircrafts that were allowed to fly were military and a special jet that was chartered by the Saudi Arabian government and the bin Laden family chartered an aircraft to pick up family members in Los Angeles, Orlando, and Washington, D.C. The bin Laden plane then flew the relatives to Boston, where one week after the attacks the group left Logan Airport bound for Jeddah. The FBI was not permitted to speak to any of the two dozen family members who were quickly flown out of the country. Not surprising considering that former president George H Bush was working for the bin Laden family on September 11, 2001 as a senior adviser. The bin Laden family has long had both close personal and business ties to the Bush families.

Answer 3

3.14159 days