An electrical fire in an air traffic control facility near Chicago caused a day of chaos at the city’s two main airports, with hundreds of flights grounded at O’Hare and Midway airports.
Chicago Terminal Radar Approach Control, located in the suburb of Elgin, was evacuated at midday yesterday after an electrical fire was discovered in a faulty air conditioning unit.
Immediate arrivals were handled by a back-up control center in Aurora, Illinois according to FAA spokesman Tony Molinaro, while a ground stop was placed on all flights for the next four hours at both airports.
Flight tracking firm FlightStats.com reported over 1,000 delays involving flights to and from O’Hare and Midway.
O’Hare is the second-busiest airport in the US and a major hub for American Airlines and United Airlines, impacting heavily on flights throughout the country.
Inside the overcrowded terminals, long lines of people formed trying to rebook on later flights.
Normal operations resumed at the Elgin facility by late afternoon although delays continued for several hours, with dozens of planes backed up on tarmac.
The incident was the second time in as many weeks the FAA has had to halt flights due to equipment failure at a flight control center.
On April 30 Los Angeles traffic control systems broke down due to an error in tracking a high-altitude U-2 spy plane, the FAA said.
