Anyone see this? http://posttrib.suntimes.com/30167722-537/flight-delays-to-continue-after-arson.html#.VCnNuOeXtGE
http://www.metafilter.com/143174/ATCSCC-ADVZY-020-DCC-ZAU-09-26-2014-ZAU-GROUND-STOP On Friday, ATCSCC Advisory 20 of 26-Sep-2014 went out. When operators, controllers and airport managers saw the title, a gasp of disbelief was heard. The problem was simple enough to state in three words, and complex enough to cancel thousand of flights and cost hundred of millions of dollars: ZAU ATC ZERO <http://www.fly.faa.gov/adv/adv_otherdis.jsp?advn=20&adv_date=09262014&facId=DCC/ZAU&title=ZAU+GROUND+STOP&titleDate=09/26/14> . ZAU <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Air_Route_Traffic_Control_Center> is the call sign of the Chicago Air Rout Traffic Control Center (ARTCC), which covers <http://www.fly.faa.gov/Information/west/zau/zau.htm> northern Illinois and Indiana, southern Wisconsin, western Iowa, and south eastern Michigan. There are two "sides" at an ARTCC. ZAU-LO handed traffic destined for airports in the covered area, ZAU-HI handled traffic overflying. Both were amongst the busiest in the country. ZAU-HI was busy with traffic from the east to west, as well as European traffic heading to Houston and Dallas-FW, ZAU-LO had to feed in traffic from airports like GYY <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary/Chicago_International_Airport>, MKE <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Mitchell_International_Airport>, RFD <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Rockford_International_Airport>, PIA <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Wayne_A._Downing_Peoria_International_Airport>, and the two busiest airports in the area; Chicago Midway International <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Midway_International_Airport> and O'Hare International <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Hare_International_Airport>, one of the busiest airports in the world. On Friday morning, Brian Howard, a contract employee of the FAA and holding full credentials to the ZAU datacenters, set a fire in the telecom room, destroying 23 of the 29 <http://posttrib.suntimes.com/30167722-537/flight-delays-to-continue-after-arson.html> rack and disconnecting all the controller stations from the associated radars and radio transmitters needed to watch and guide traffic through the busy sector. As the consoles dropped offline, the ZAU duty manager had no choice -- they called ZZZ, the FAA command center <http://www.fly.faa.gov/flyfaa/usmap.jsp> and reported ATC ZERO -- no controllers available, control center offline.
