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Nearly 2,000 Chicago Flights Canceled After Worker Sets Fire At Radar Center
SpzToid sends this news out of Illinois:
Nearly 2,000 flights in Chicago have been canceled so far today as federal aviation officials slowly resume operations at O'Hare and Midway airports following a fire that was deliberately set at an FAA radar center, apparently by a disgruntled worker. The center handles high-altitude traffic across parts of the Midwest. Controllers there direct planes through the airspace and either hand off the air traffic to other facilities handling high-altitude traffic or direct the planes to terminal radar facilities, including one in Elgin, which in turn direct planes to and from airport towers.
So there's no provision for having the work done at this center be taken up at other centers? The news reports say radar center, but can't the data be routed elsewhere? What it there were a much larger fire that took down the facility for months? Does that mean Chicago becomes a no-fly zone?
Police said the man is a contractor, not an air traffic controller or FAA manager.
Reading is hard.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
You want them to land planes from home? LOL That has to be the silliest thing I have heard all week.
Remember when Ronald Reagan fired all of the air traffic controllers because they had the nerve to form a union and strike for better pay? Now the air traffic controllers work on obsolete equipment, get paid very little, have a stressful job with long hours, oh and are the only people stopping planes from running into eachother. I am almost amazed no one has gone crazy before now.
Redundancy costs money, and people don't like spending more money. To save cost you cut redundancy.
I don't know everything.
cheap contract workers are better than investing in employees!
If a single person can cause so much havoc without killing anyone — and without the condemnation and sympathy for the victim concomitant with any would-be murder — the terrorists don't need to kill.
Heck, they don't even need to set fire — just phone-in an anonymous warning.
A moderately motivated group could also disable a city's subway system for hours — by boarding the trains on carefully picked stations and pretending to have a seizure of some sort. Our kind society's rules (as evidenced in that paragon of humanity New York City) say, you can not be taken out of the train — except by "qualified personnel". So all other passengers will be removed from the car and the train will wait for the EMS to arrive and figure out, what to do with you. If your friends do the same to every other subway lines at the same time — during rush hour — your organization is bound to get donations, all without you killing or maiming a single person...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
That's actually a really good point. If you want to get access to sensitive locations, get hired onto the work crew. Want a key to the CEO's office? Become a janitor.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Which is exactly why lots of people wonder about the intelligence of hiring on the lowest bidder to clean out and stock commercial aircraft. You know, those people who scrunch down everywhere in the cabin with no supervision. Who load baggage in the hold after the TSA 'screens' it. Who deliver boxes and boxes of stuff to all manner of aircraft.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
This guy was a telecommunications specialist working in the basement. Are you familiar with the type?
He is a contractor whose direct employer is specified as Company A in the affadavit.
Apparently he looked in the mirror and did not like what he saw in himself or in his employer.
He was being transferred from Chicago to Hawaii. Disgruntlement?
He claims it's a crisis of conscience.