NEW YORK (AP) — Traffic at Chicago's two busiest airports was slowly returning to more normal levels Monday, three days after a fire at a regional air traffic control center disrupted much of the nation's air-travel system. The Federal Aviation Administration has temporarily assigned other controllers to oversee the airspace normally covered by the crippled suburban facility, but full service may not be restored for two weeks. A: Since Friday morning, more than 3,700 flights have been canceled at O'Hare Airport, the nation's second-largest airport by passengers, and Midway Airport, the nation's 21st largest. United Airlines and its regional partners canceled 1,579 flights, according to flight tracking site FlightAware.com. A contractor at the FAA's center in the Chicago suburb of Aurora allegedly set a fire Friday in the basement telecommunications room and then attempted to commit suicide by slashing his throat. Traffic below 18,000 feet is being handled by 19 regional facilities, which hand off approaching flights to the individual airport control towers for clearance to land. [...] it took some time to get the plan in place. Next, there was a problem sharing data between the various control centers. Since the fire took out telecommunications, there was no easy way to exchange flight data between Chicago and the four neighboring centers. [...] crews are cleaning the area damaged by the fire, making sure the building is safe. The work involves replacing 20 of 29 racks of fiber-optic cables and other telecommunications equipment and re-establishing more than 600 circuits, "so it's a very, very large job," FAA Administrator Michael P. Huerta said.
Reported by SeattlePI.com 21 hours ago.
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