On Sept. 29, a flight departure board at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago shows canceled flights after a fire at a Federal Aviation Administration air-traffic control center.(Photo: Teresa Crawford, AP)
An Illinois man has been formally charged with setting the September fire at the Chicago-area air-traffic control facility that canceled thousands of flights.
Brian Howard, 37, of Naperville, Ill., was charged Friday in U.S. District Court with willfully setting the fire at the Aurora center, and using fire to commit a felony, according to U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon.
Howard's arraignment hasn't been set yet, but he has been in custody since his arrest in September.
Howard, who was employed as a contractor for the Federal Aviation Administration, had worked about eight years on telecommunications at the regional center, where controllers track flights above 18,000 feet in the air between airports.
About 5 a.m. on Sept. 26, Howard carried a black Pelican suitcase into the center, prosecutors said. About 30 minutes after arriving, Howard posted a Facebook message that stated: "Take a hard look in the mirror, I have. And this is why I am about to take out (the center) and my life. April, Pop, love you guys and I am sorry. Leaving you with a big mess."
Other workers discovered the fire several minutes later. Amid dense smoke, emergency responders found that a floor panel had been lifted to expose telecommunications cables, some of which had been severed and set on fire. A gas can sat next to the floor panel, along with the Pelican suitcase.
The fire cost airlines an estimated $350 million as more than 5,000 flights at O'Hare and Midway airports were canceled in the week that followed. Hundreds of controllers from neighboring states pitched in for weeks to keep flights safe as the center was rebuilt.
FAA has asked Congress for $8.8 million to improve FAA security. The FAA is also striving to organize communications and training to handle 90% of scheduled flights within 24 hours of a catastrophic outage such as a fire, rather than the several days it took to hit that mark in September.
If Howard is convicted, the charge of willfully setting the fire carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000, or twice the damage caused by the fire.
The charge of using fire to commit a federal felony carries a mandatory penalty of 10 years in prison.
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