FAA orders comprehensive security review after fire grounds Chicago flights

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/29/chicago-airport-flights-faa-review-vulnerability-fire

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The Federal Aviation Administration announced a 30-day review of its top sites in the United States on Monday following an apparent suicide attempt at a Chicago-area air traffic control facility that left thousands of flights grounded.

Top US lawmakers say that is not enough and are warning that the incident reveals gaping security gaps at the nation’s leading airports.

Brian Howard, 36, of Naperville, Illinois, set fire to a basement facility Friday at the FAA’s Air Route Traffic Control Center in Aurora, located about 40 miles from O’Hare International Airport. He was found with self-inflicted stab wounds.

Howard’s actions grounded flights for days, and led to questions about the robustness of the FAA’s contingency plans. He remains in a local hospital and is charged with one count of destruction of aircraft or aircraft facilities. His motive for attempting to take his own life in the facility, where he worked for a contractor, remains unclear.

Speaking to a conference of air traffic controllers in Washington Monday, FAA administrator Michael Huerta said that his agency would conduct a 30-day review of “contingency plans for our major facilities … to make sure we are prepared to both assure the safety of aircraft but also the efficiency of the system.” The review will also “review the security protocols at our facilities”.

The FAA activated an emergency contingency plan that diverted air traffic control to centers in Minneapolis, Kansas City, Cleveland and Indianapolis. Air traffic controllers who are typically based in Chicago are dispatched to centers in those cities to assist with the added traffic flow. Huerta said the fire disrupted the agency’s ability to exchange flight plan data between Chicago and the surrounding facilities, and that crews are currently moving equipment that survived the fire to a different floor. The center will not be operational until 13 October.

In a letter to Huerta this weekend, Senator Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican, demanded to know to how the actions of one person was able to thwart such a vital facility.

“This shows a great vulnerability of our system. We have now told terrorists around the world how you can shut down the beating heart of the US economy,” he told WGN News.

Senator Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, is also calling for an investigation, along with five members of Congress. In a letter sent to the inspector general of the US Department of Transportation, Calvin Scovel, Durbin asked for an investigation into the FAA’s safety policies, noting that the fire at the facility was the second this year.

“Critical safety issues like those experienced in the past year warrant an investigation into the emergency protocol and mitigation practices at Chicago air traffic control facilities and ways the FAA can mitigate fire hazards at some of the nation’s busiest air traffic control centers,” the Illinois members wrote.

“Recommended improvements from the review could protect the safety of workers at the Chicago facilities and passengers flying to and from Chicago.”

Durbin told the Chicago Tribune that safety protocols missed checking a suitcase Howard brought into the facility that held a gasoline container used for the fire.

The Aurora facility is one of the FAA’s largest, primarily because it serves O’Hare, the nation’s busiest airport. Flights there, and at Midway International Airport in Chicago, were grounded for most of the weekend. The center controls air traffic over five states and hundreds of airports, spanning 91,000 miles, according to the agency.

In his comments on Monday, Huerta also noted budget problems. He said Congress has not yet approved its 2015 budget, which has created “a difficult situation when it comes to long-term planning and budgeting”. He added: “We have to prioritize our work, and the current budget environment is making us take a closer look at what we can do differently or perhaps stop altogether.”

Meanwhile, air traffic controllers characterize working conditions as “the most challenging” since 9/11.

In a statement released Sunday, Paul Rinaldi, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association in Washington, said the damage to the Aurora center is “unlike anything we have seen before”.

“Since the first moment when radar scopes went dark at Chicago Center Friday morning, controllers have ensured the highest level of safety at all times,” he said.