Snafu at O'Hare

Flights backed up after airport's radar shuts down twice

O'Hare Airport's primary radar system shut down twice Friday, delaying many flights at one of the nation's busiest airports.

O'Hare's Airport Surveillance Radar 9 first stopped operating about 3:30 a.m., said Wendy Abrams, spokeswoman for the Chicago Department of Aviation.

The radar was fixed at 9 a.m., but it went down again at 9:35 a.m. and was restored just before noon.

A pair of defective switches caused the outages, and the airport used a backup system in south suburban Tinley Park while Federal Aviation Administration technicians worked on the problem, officials said.

The airport has had only one on-site radar system for the last 12 years, though the FAA plans to install a second by 2008 as part of the O'Hare expansion project. Delays on Friday averaged from 30 to 45 minutes for inbound and outbound flights, according to Abrams.

Ray Gibbons, of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said 96 planes usually arrive per hour at O'Hare, but that number was trimmed back to 60 because the backup radar system covers a smaller portion of O'Hare's airspace.

''The fact that O'Hare has only one radar site is absolutely ridiculous,'' Gibbons said.

When the radar failed the second time, Gibbons said it took as long as five minutes for controllers to locate an inbound plane from Milwaukee after they switched to the backup system again.

"It's certainly not our best operating scenario," he said.

Midway Airport was not affected by Friday's outages because its radar system is at the Tinley Park facility.

The outages did, however, impact the Chicago Executive Airport in the northwest suburbs, and Waukegan Regional Airport in far north suburban Waukeg.

Contributing:Sun-Times Staff Reporter Monifa Thomas

AP