Tyriq Withers and Daniel Kaluuya turned an unexpected airport delay into comedy gold, going viral for an interview with a local Eugene, Ore., news outlet.
After getting stranded amid Friday’s FAA ground stop, which lasted roughly four hours the “Him” actor and the “Get Out” star participated in CBS affiliate KVAL‘s coverage of the outage over the disruption. Speaking with local reporter Gold Meadows, the two said they were about to head back to Los Angeles when they were forced to deboard the plane. “I just want to thank God for FAA really protecting us, post-blue wave as well,” Withers said before joking. “But I feel like it’s really upsetting me and my home girl ‘cause if you can’t go to the airport, where the hell can you go?”
He was referencing a viral meme from a 2015 WBRZ interview about the nightclub shooting in Bella Noche, La. where a woman famously said, “If you can’t go to Bella Noche, where the hell can you go?”
Kaluuya burst into laughter and tried to compose himself. Withers then continued on with the bit saying, “But I feel grateful ‘cause it could have happened any other way. Think about how many lives were probably saved because of that decision.”
He added, “I feel good, man. I’m like, ‘We’re out here. I’m in Eugene, Oregon.”
Withers made an “O” with his hands while yelling, “Throw the ‘O!’” Kaluuya was quick to double down, screaming, “O way or no way!”
The Federal Aviation Administration announced a rare nationwide ground stop on Friday afternoon, as a telecommunication outage affected the air traffic control system. The cause for the outage has not yet been revealed.
The last time a nationwide grounding of flights took place was in 2023 for just 90 minutes because of an outage in the FAA’s system to alert pilots to safety issues. Before that, the last time the FAA issued nationwide ground stops was on Sept. 11, 2001.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy explained Saturday morning that the FAA outage that grounded around 12,500 flights across the nation Friday was due to old copper communication wires becoming overloaded.
Flights were resumed later Friday. Here’s hoping Withers and Kaluuya made it home!
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