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 Flights resumed at O'Hare International Airport, one of the
world's busiest, after a delay of about four hours, but there were
bottlenecks across the entire air system that carriers expect to
last through the weekend.
There were no indications that the fire was an act of terrorism and
the blaze was quickly extinguished, authorities said. The Federal
Aviation Administration said employees were evacuated from its
control center when the fire broke out. One person was treated for
smoke inhalation.
Brian Howard, 36, who lives in the Chicago suburb of Naperville, was
charged on Friday in U.S. District Court in Chicago with one felony
count of destruction of aircraft or aircraft facilities, prosecutors
said.
Howard, who has worked at the facility in Aurora, near Chicago, for
eight years, was recently told that he was being transferred to
Hawaii, according to the complaint.
The suspect is a longtime employee of Harris Corp <HRS.N>, which
provides equipment and technical support for the FAA facility in
Chicago and many others, U.S. government officials said.
The FAA is still assessing the damage, which may be significant, but
the agency hopes to restore air traffic to relatively normal levels
over the next few days, they said.
Air traffic was being handled by other control centers in the
region, including Minneapolis, Indianapolis and Cleveland, officials
said.
According to an affidavit attached to the complaint, Howard could be
seen on video entering the facility just after 5 a.m. dragging a
black hard-sided suitcase.
About half an hour later a private message was posted to his
Facebook account that said he was "about to take out" the control
center and take his own life, the affidavit said. A relative
forwarded the message to police.
A fire was reported at the control center at about 5:42 a.m. CDT
(1042 GMT) and paramedics entered the basement and followed smoke
and a blood trail to an open floor panel that had exposed wires, the
affidavit said. A black suitcase and gas can were next to the
opening along with what appeared to be burned towels, it said.
Following the blood trail, paramedics found more knives and
encountered Howard shirtless with cut wounds on his arms and saw him
slicing at his own throat, the affidavit said.
Howard remains hospitalized and no court date has been set,
prosecutors said. He would face up to 20 years in prison and a
$250,000 fine if convicted on the charge.
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DELAYS THROUGH THE DAY
The incident caused major delays at O'Hare and the domestic hub
Midway International Airport, affecting flights from almost every
state and routes with Europe, Asia and Latin America.
There were 1,755 flights into and out of the two airports that were
canceled by 8 p.m. CDT, according to tracking website
flightaware.com, leaving thousands of travelers stranded.
"There's cascading delays because nothing can take off bound for
Chicago from anywhere," said Doug Church, spokesman for the National
Air Traffic Controllers Association, a union of air traffic
controllers. "The impact is national and major."
At O'Hare, passengers were scrambling to find alternative
transportation or bracing for long delays.
"I'm shocked at how calm everyone is. With everything going on in
the world, maybe we're all managing our expectations. It's a fire in
Aurora, it's not ISIS," said Cynthia Stemler of the Chicago suburb
of Lake Bluff, who was heading to Newark, New Jersey, in a reference
to the militant Islamic group at war in Syria and Iraq.
O'Hare is the main hub for United Airlines <UAL.N> and a major hub
for American Airlines <AAL.O>. The airport averaged about 2,700
flights a day in August with a daily average of about 220,000
passengers passing through in the month, according data posted on
its website.
Southwest Airlines Co <LUV.N> suspended all flights through the day
at Midway and Milwaukee’s General Mitchell International Airport,
the airline said in a statement.
(Reporting by Colleen Jenkins, Karen Brooks, David Bailey, Alwyn
Scott, Jeffrey Dastin, Andrea Shalal and Mark Hosenball; Writing by
Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Mohammad Zargham, Bill Trott, Gunna
Dickson and Eric Beech)
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