Looks like theyre trying to do here, carol. Rene marsh, chad myers, thank yous to both of you. this hour with berman and michaela starts now. Hello, everyone, im john berman. Im michaela pereira. We have breaking news. This is breaking news out of london. This will affect thousands and thousands of travelers and snarl air travel for hours airspace over london right now is restricted . We understand a technical problem is to blame. We want to turn straight now to jim boulden in london. Give us an idea of what youre hearing there on what caused this failure. Right now theyre telling us a technical problem here at the main air Traffic Control system which controls the entire southeast of the uk. Were talking about london heathrow, gatwick, luten, major airports. Were talking about flights coming in from the u. S. Many dozens able to come from american airlines, united and delta all being hugely disrupted. Originally we were told the airspace was closed because of a computer failure. Now theyre saying a technical problem or power failure and theyre saying that the area around southeast england is restrict sod they are restricting the number of flights in and out of the airspace. It was believed the airspace would be closed completely until 2 00 eastern but they are now stressing that the airspace is open but we restrict traffic volumes in accordance with capability because of this issue. It may be nothing more than a power failure but its been enough to cause as you say, will cause chaos. London International Airports not just take flights to and from. There are a lot of people who travel through here on the way to africa, to the middle east and into europe. An enormous number of flights from the u. S. That will be affected and a number of people who will have Flights Canceled or flights that will be massively delayed out of heathrow or canceled all together so anybody expecting people to be traveling, you can imagine the amount of chaos well have. To call london a major hub, jim, is an understatement. Hundreds of thousands of passengers pass through there effort and its not just heathrow. There are five airports in that region. Im curious, for several minutes, half an hour, we heard the airspace over london was completely closed now were being told its restricted. Why the change . How long might this last . Well, you dont just have the faa, so your control, which is the e. U. s control center told us that it was the london airspace closed due to a computer failure and would stay closed until 2 00 eastern u. S. Time. Then we heard from nats, thats the air Traffic ControlManagement Company to say well, actually, were still open but things are very restricted. Its too early to say its a computer failure. They wanted to say it was a power outage possibly then were hearing them saying were going to call it a technical problem. Well, this is a heck of a technical problem. You think about the amount of airplanes that come through here and the backup systems that you would have for this airspace and something has gone terribly wrong. So given the three potential options of what it is, theyre scrambling all sorts of people to figure out what is going on. Have you been given a sense of what is being done to fix the problem . Well, when we heard they were going to close the airspace for three and a half hours, that led me to believe theyre talking about a massive failure and they have to start and reboot the system and test it and that can take a long time. I think theyre probably using obviously extreme caution. There is no room for error here. You are talking about airplanes in coming into the airport and then the screens go blank. They still have visuals and thank goodness they can still talk to the control centers and to the towers but for the towers not to be able to seep the planes is something a reason why you would see them not just restrict bug closing. We could take some relief that they are restricting airspace but not closing it completely. This is not just something you can ctrl, alt, dlt your way out of. And the screens theyre looking at just went blank so you can understand why theyre taking Safety Measures here. Whos in charge, jim. In the United States its the faa. Who will be running this fix . Who will ultimately say it is safe to fly through this airspace . Well, theres the caa here, the zichl Aviation Authority in the uk. Unlike other things in europe, it is controlled by the European Union group. You still have airspace that you are completely in control of so the caa would have done it. Nats is the Management Company that manages the airspace. Nats, thats the Company Whose system, however it happened, has failed. And that controls such a critical part not just of the uk but of the worlds airspace. This is something theyre going to have to be investigating. We have had this failure before, i have to say, a few times over the years as the system was upgraded. Nats is something we all keep our eye on. I dont remember this kind of situation where at least we were told in the beginning that they would close the airspace out right, not since ash cloud of 2010. It sounded in the beginning to be quite a dramatic step to take. Least now were being told the airspace is open but restricted. But if youre flying from denver or l. A. Or seattle your flight may not take off because they may not want you to start that journey with other airplanes having to take planes that have not been able to go into london heathrow. Lets talk about that for a second because i think thats a very important point that we should talk about. Its december 12, likely there are going to be people traveling for the holidays. This is a very, very busy travel season. Maybe people are looking to board a flight today to head overseas. You were talking about united, delta american, they see a lot of flights going from various points here in the United States over to london. This is going to impact a whole lot of travellers the world over. Not just here in the United States heading to london. Exactly. I mean, heathrow takes planes landing, taking off every 90 second. Theres no room for margin of error at london thooet roe. There are only two runways as well. Most people think its much more but its only two runways so when you have any situation, whether its snow, whether its the ash cloud, whether its a strike, it does affect people in other parts of the world. I can see a lot of these flights heading to places like amsterdam, i can see them going to frankfurt where there are many runways but if youre the person on that plane and now you here in frankfurt instead of london, your day has been disrupted. Imagine if you went to sleep, had a nap and woke up in frankfurt. When it happens in the United States we end up in a different city o in the United States. If youre in europe youre a different country which creates a whole different set of complications. Well check back with you at a second. Were looking at live pictures of heathrow airport. We see a lot of planes there. Not sure if that means theres a backup there. Theres always a lot of planes coming and going. I dont see any planes moving on the ground which might be telling. I want to bring in chad myers from the cnn weathercenter in atlanta. Were looking at the situation on the ground, chad. You may have a sense of whats going on in the air around southwest london right now. In the air and whats not happening in the air. No more planes likely taking off, especially short haul planes taking off toward the london area. Toward anyone from wales, manchester south. Thats where this technical problem is. You get to the north part of the country, north part of the uk in good shape. Get toward france in good shape. If youre sitting in amsterdam, a short flight to london, youll be sitting there on the tarmac or go to the penalty box because you wont be able to take off. They dont want that many more planes in the airspace as you get closer to heathrow. So thats what people are experiencing. What we call it here in america is a ground stop. Its kind of a misnomer. It doesnt stop the airport that youre landing on, it stops you at the airport youre going to take off from so you dont want to get more volume in the sky. This restricted airspace, this amount of distance you have to have between planes, as he was talking about, 90 seconds, its amazing to me, i have a great view of the hartsfield airport and how these controllers can stack planes for miles and miles and miles. You can see them coming for 30 miles one after another after another. Now those planes will get farther and farther apart. More visual. I think its safe to say they didnt lose the primary and secondary radars. They can still they would still know where these planes are, its just a little bit more difficult to get that stacking tin, if you remember that old movie, just getting them closer and closer. Theyll separate them to make sure they can get there. Theyll have to send them likely to other airplanes. Planes have plenty of fuel to get to other airplanes. Look at all of these blue dots here, here, here, here. This is not like denver to Salt Lake City where theres nothing in between. There are many, many airports that can take all the airplanes that r in the sky right now. Chad, we appreciate that. Can we bring in rene marsh real quick . I think its worth talking about, the effect this will have in the United States. People hear Something Like this and think okay, i have a loved one in the air, im aparade of what this could mean. What kind of technical problem could this have been . What could it have stemmed from . We really dont know what caused this computer glitch a computer glitch at one point we were told that the airspace is shut down. Of course an investigation go into what caused that but as far as what are the concerns and why theyre taking this so seriously, i mean, taking the step of closing the airspace at one point. It goes to show the bottom line is this. When you have such a crowded, tremendously crowded airspace going into one of the busiest airports, a Major International hub. You want to make sure that when you have so many planes in the air at once that air Traffic Controllers know where these planes are, they can communicate with the pilots, they can safely keep these planes spaced apart and thats critical and the bottom line. So thats why were seeing the actions them taking the actions they are taking because the chance you dont want to take is that that these flights somehow lose the correct separation you always want them to be safely separate sod thats why we know that theyre restrictions in which they are cutting back on the number of flights within this airspace. Also diversions where some may have been bound for heathrow but wont be able to and at heathrow, knife land at airport airport and we know from past stories, whether its weather, whether its something technical like this, once you have an issue in which youre shutting down an airspace, this is a Ripple Effect thats not going to last hours, it could last days. We are talking about a very busy travel point at this point. In fact, rene, we have a statement from the faa. Let me read it outloud here. It says euro control advised london acc it has a computer failure affecting air traffic. Air born traffic will continue to be accepted however no departure traffic into london acc will be released in europe. This this will include any departures out of or through london acc to north america. Departures from north america are not in any stops to or through the london acc at this time. That means planes from the United States and north america can leave to go to london but if youre in london wanting to come back to the United States not happening right now. Not happening right now. This dont seem like a dangerous situation, it just seems extraordinarily inconvenient and frustrating. And the timing couldnt be worse with the heavy travel season and it takes after this kind of ground stop if you will theres a trickling down effect. This could be until tomorrow. It could be. So stick with us. Rene marsh, our thanks to, you chad myers and jim boulden as well. Well continue to follow this breaking news out of london which will have an impact far beyond london and bring you updates as they come in. Well be right back. Just look at those two. Happy. In love. And saving so much money on their Car Insurance by switching to geico. Well, just look at this setting. Do you have the ring . Oh, helzberg diamonds. Another beautiful setting. Im not crying. Ive just got a bit of sand in my eyes, thats all. Geico. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on Car Insurance. Come in and use your starbucks gift card any day through january 5th for a chance to win starbucks for life. And our big idaho potato truck is still missing. So my buddy here is going to help me find it. Here we go. Woo who, woah, woah, woah. 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She joins more than two dozen women accusing the actor and comedian of drugging or sexually assaulting them. She told her story in an essay published in vanity fair. This morning she gave our Alison Camerota some of those details. Take a listen. He gave me the cappuccino, i took one zsip and i felt something very strange going in my head and then i well, the first sensation was, you know, a little woozy and so then i took another zip and after that second sip i knew i had been drugged. It was very powerful, it came on very quickly. The room started to spin. My speech was slurred. I remember him call megaover towards him as if we were going to begin the scene then and he placed his hands on my waist, i remember steadying myself with my hand on his shoulders. And i i just kind of cocked my head because at that point i knew he had drugged me and i was just looking at him and i just asked him the question, you are an mf, arent you . I immediately went into a survival mode. I knew that he had drugged me and i wanted him to know that he had drugged me. So the only word i could get out and i dont swear was mf. And i kept saying it to him louder and louder and for a moment he stood there looking at me like i was crazy and then it happened very quickly. He immediately grabbed me and starting to drag me towards the stairs that went down stairs to the outdoors and i was stumbling around, trying to grab my handbag and i didnt know where he was taking me but we ended up outside and it was still it was dust so it was pretty light out and all i remember is him grabbing me by one arm and him flailing for a taxi with the other. I remember kind of looking around at people and people really recognizing that thats bill cosby and a taxi stops. He opens the door and he throws me in there and he slams the door shut and i somehow get my address out to the taxicab driver. Johnson says the attack took place in cosbys new york townhouse in the 1980s. I want to bring Alisyn Camerota who joins us. Alisyn, that was a terrific interview, riveting. Couldnt take my eyes off it. What we have now is this growing number of women. Ive lost count of him women, its over 20 now. And not only the numbers that are interesting but also the consistency in some of their stories. I will say theres the consistent question with many of these which is why come forward now all these years later . Well, 34 tell them the same story, bill cosby was an incredibly powerful connected person and they didnt want to ruin their own reputations and their own careers. Beverly johnson spoke to that. She also didnt want to bring down this man who, as she described, was a beloved entertainer. And he had this wonderful reputation. She thought she was alone. She didnt know at that time that there were other women and she didnt want to be responsible for the downfall of this man who had done so much for the black community. It was more complicated for her. It was interesting to hear her speak with you, too, because she spoke about the fact that coming forward with this meant something to her family, too. And there was a conversation she had to have with the people that love her and she loves. Today she had to have a conversation, she said in the ast 24 hours, also because she didnt want to add right now the narrative thereofs so many race relations, there are problems in america for black men. She felt it somehow emits the conversation of