Live updates: Misery for thousands at UK airports as transatlantic flights are cancelled after US grounded ALL planes – days after AI ‘Smart’ tool was launched

Flights across the US were grounded for four hours yesterday in an unprecedented nationwide ground stop.

Watch our video below, where reporter Elizabeth Haigh explains how the move-like Friday 13th disaster unfolded:

It’s now gone 9am on the US east coast and pictures have started to come in from airports this morning.

These were taken at Newark Liberty International airport in Newark, New Jersey.

The arrivals board at Heathrow Terminal 5 shows the lengthy delays experienced by passengers coming from the United States.

One British Airways flight from Denver, BA218, was scheduled to arrive at 9.10am and is now estimated to land at 11.06am on Sunday, a delay of almost 26 hours.

Other flights including BA174 from New York and BA262 from Los Angeles have delays of around seven hours displayed on the board.

The flight from LA was meant to arrive earlier this morning at 10am, but is now scheduled for 5.38pm.

Pictured below: The arrivals board at Heathrow

Travellers were last night left stranded at airports across the US after all flights nationwide were grounded.

Many were forced to camp out overnight in terminals as they waited to board rebooked flights this morning.

Pictured below are the scenes in LaGuardia Airport in New York yesterday:

A selfless pilot won hearts after he thanked every passenger deplaning his flight after being stuck on the tarmac for hours during a nationwide ground stop.

The gesture came after the American Airlines plane was stuck on the tarmac for more than two hours during the rare ground stop of all flights across the country on Friday.

Read the full story below:

If your flight has been delayed or cancelled due to the ground stop in the US we want to hear from you.

Please email olivia.christie@dailymail.co.uk with your story.

Renata Hoare, who was flying Virgin Atlantic, says her flight to New York last night was cancelled just after she had boarded the plane.

‘They had got us on board, the doors were shut and everything was ready to go. But at 9.10pm we got informed by the captain that there was an issue in the States, they couldn’t identify what was, and that we were being deboarded.’

Hoare, who is travelling to Montego Bay in Jamaica via New York, says she was put up in a hotel overnight by the airline and has been rebooked on a later flight.

Dramatic video and audio captured the moment pilots and passengers were made aware of an extremely rare ground stop of all flights.

Watch the full clip below:

Donald Trump has said the rare ground stop across the US yesterday ‘could’ have been caused by ‘old broken stuff.’

American air traffic control systems are notoriously antiquated and use floppy disks that date back to the 1980s.

This month, the Federal Aviation Administration said it would replace outdated equipment at more than 400 sites by the end of 2028.

Addressing the issue, Trump said the groundstop did not seem to be a cyber attack and that it could be a result of an old system that had been upgraded.

American Airlines passenger, Derek, has had to rebook a flight to Los Angeles that was cancelled.

‘I found out at 10pm yesterday that our flight was cancelled, but I had booked a taxi at that point so had to come anyways.’

‘Luckily the departure time is about the same but we have to go via Miami which will be a four hour layover.’

Derek, who was travelling to LA for work thought that the airline had ‘done quite well so far’ with managing the chaos.

‘Surprisingly, it’s been better than expected’ he said of the impact on travel.

One passenger has been left stranded for more than five hours at Heathrow after his flight to the US was cancelled.

David Parejo, who is travelling for a work conference, was due to catch a 9.55am service to Charlotte, North Carolina.

‘I received an email at 5am today but I didn’t check until I got to the airport’, he told the Mail.

‘My flight is now at 2pm so I have a five hour wait here. I’m still getting there on direct flight which is not so bad after all. Some people were quite concerned about travelling at all today.’

Pictured below: David Parejo at Heathrow Airport

Tim Johnson, Consumer Director at the UK Civil Aviation Authority, said: