O'Hare spending soars
Officials cite delays caused by opponents of expansion project
By Jon Hilkevitch
Tribune transportation reporter
October 15, 2006
Chicago officials acknowledged publicly Friday for the first time that the expansion of O'Hare International Airport is over budget and running well behind schedule, blaming the setbacks largely on opponents of the project.
The initial phase to expand the airport is about $400 million over budget, O'Hare officials told bond rating agencies last week. Delays, they said, have pushed back the original 2013 completion date.
The officials attributed the overruns in the massive project to receiving federal approval of the airport expansion 14 months later than the city expected, costly litigation with O'Hare opponents that is stalling runway work and higher than expected land-acquisition costs. Those costs, originally projected at $800 million, have grown to $1.2 billion, officials said.
Delays in purchasing homes and business properties, which the city blamed on court fights with Elk Grove Village and Bensenville, accounted for about $272 million of the overruns. In addition, administrative and engineering costs exceeded original estimates by about $128 million, said Rosemarie Andolino, executive director of the O'Hare Modernization Program.
The bad news was delivered in preparation for an O'Hare bond sale set for next month to finance the construction of new runways.
The $400 million in higher costs does not include construction of a key taxiway that the Federal Aviation Administration has made a condition for one of the new runways to open. The so-called Lima Lima taxiway, needed for both safety and airport efficiency, is projected to cost about $200 million, according to city documents.
Despite the problems, the construction work awarded so far is running about 1 percent under engineering estimates, according to the O'Hare Modernization Program. The savings total about $30 million.
However, most of the work has involved moving dirt and other preparations. Contracts for concrete work on runways, which carry significantly higher materials costs, have not been awarded yet on any portion of the $15 billion project, which would result in six parallel runways and two diagonal runways if completed.
The opening of the first new runway, on the far north end of the airport, and the extension of an existing runway are now being pushed back to November 2008, and perhaps later, from an original opening slated in 2007, Andolino said. She said unusually wet weather this year added to delays, which began last year when the original bids for the new runway came in higher than internal estimates.
"I don't know what this winter will bring. We will do whatever we can to keep to the 2008 schedule," Andolino said.
The second new runway, originally planned for completion in 2009, is now on the books to open in November 2011, Andolino said. But that's only if a federal court decides in Chicago's favor in a lawsuit over whether the city can move about 1,600 graves at St. Johannes Cemetery, which borders the existing airport.
"The litigation over the cemetery is a big unknown," Andolino said. "It's premature at this moment to say when the entire project will be completed. I don't know how Phase 2 will roll out."
The city has not yet sought federal funding or airline financial commitments to pay for the second phase of O'Hare expansion, which is the part of the project when most of the increase in airport capacity and reduction in flight delays would occur.
REPORT FROM BRAZIL
Brazil controllers: Don't lay blame yet
MARTIN EVANS
October 15, 2006
BRASÍLIA, Brazil - Two retired Brazilian air traffic controllers say Brazilian aviation authorities shouldn't jump to the conclusion that two Long Island pilots are to blame for that country's worst-ever aviation accident.
Brazilian authorities have accused the pilots of violating their flight plan by cruising at an improper altitude, and turning off an electronic device that helps avoid collisions by broadcasting an aircraft's speed and position.
But one retired controller told Brazil's O Globo newspaper that a 1999 incident in which two planes nearly collided indicates that such devices, transponders, have stopped working without being intentionally disabled.
A second former controller told O Globo that written flight plans are routinely changed during conversations between traffic controllers and pilots.
Brazilian aviation officials are said to be seeking interviews with two air traffic controllers who were monitoring radar equipment in the moments before the Sept. 29 collision.
Air Force Brig. Alvaro L. Pinheiro da Costa told Newsday yesterday it is common for flight plans to be altered during conversations between controllers and the cockpit. But Pinheiro da Costa, who developed Brazil's upgraded air traffic control system, said he did not know whether investigators had examined airport equipment that would have automatically recorded communications between the control tower and the pilots as they prepared for takeoff.
"They can change the proposed flight plan, but everything is recorded," he said.
O Globo quoted former air controller Joaquim Francisco Rodrigues, 51, as saying the pilot of a Varig jetliner told him his transponder was on, even though the transponder data did not appear on the radar. Another aircraft maneuvered sharply to avoid the Varig in the 1999 incident.
The comments by the retired controllers would bolster the position of the two pilots, Jan Paladino, 34, of Westhampton Beach, and Joseph Lepore, 42, of Bay Shore. The two employees of Ronkonkoma-based ExcelAire were ferrying a newly purchased Embraer Legacy jet to the United States when they collided with a Boeing 737 at 37,000 feet. All 154 people aboard the Boeing were killed.
Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.
Schumer says FAA must review NY air space
NEW YORK Senator Charles Schumer says the Federal Aviation Administration must do a better job of protecting New York's air space after last week's plane crash that killed Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle and his flight instructor.
Schumer says the F-A-A is only focused on safety when it also needs to consider the risk of terrorism.
He says the F-A-A should complete a thorough review of New York's air space within 90 days.
On Friday, the F-A-A banned most small, fixed-wing planes from flying along the East River in New York City unless the pilot is in contact with air traffic controllers.
An F-A-A spokesman says the agency will continue to review the air space in New York.
Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Comair Sues FAA, Lexington Airport To Share Plane Crash Costs
October 14, 2006 5:45 p.m. EST
Shaveta Bansal - All Headline News Staff Writer
Chicago, IL (AHN) - Comair on Friday filed a lawsuit against the Federal Aviation Administration and the Lexington airport saying the barriers from an airport construction project were among several hazards contributing to the deadly Comair plane crash in August.
The commuter plane mistakenly took off from a too-short runway and crashed in a field resulting in the deaths of 49 people on board.
In a statement, the airline said it intends to reach fair settlements with the victims' families but is suing to ensure other parties that bear responsibility pay their share.
The Delta Airlines subsidiary in its lawsuit alleges that FAA failed in its duty to approve the construction of new taxi route leading to main runway at the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Airport.
The lawsuit also claims that the FAA failed to properly staff the control tower with two air traffic controllers. Instead, only one was on duty that morning, and he had turned away from the airfield to work on paperwork prior to the plane taking off from the wrong runway.
Besides that, signs, lighting and markers that would have guided the pilots of Comair Flight 5191 to the correct runway were missing because of the construction, the suit alleges.
Robert Clifford, a Chicago-based attorney who represents some of the crash victims' families, said Comair's suit and claim is a move by the airline to spread out the financial hit of any settlement.
"Comair really does believe the tower could have broken a chain of events ... that led to this crash," Clifford told the AP.
The first lawsuit brought by one of the families of the victims was filed in a Kentucky state court a few days after the crash.
Edward Curran; FAA Negotiator During 1981 Strike
By Patricia Sullivan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 14, 2006; B06
Edward V. Curran, 77, the Federal Aviation Administration's director of labor relations when President Ronald Reagan broke the air traffic controllers' strike in 1981, died of a severe stroke Sept. 21 at Inova Fairfax Hospital. He lived in Springfield.
Mr. Curran always regarded the strike of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization and the subsequent firing of more than 11,000 federal employees as a tragedy for those who lost their jobs, his family said. The firing and replacement of the controllers is considered a turning point in the nation's labor movement, drastically reducing the number of strikes and accelerating a long decline in union membership.
Mr. Curran, who was the FAA's labor negotiator since 1970, was at the bargaining table when PATCO and the FAA reached a tentative agreement on their contract in August 1981. But the PATCO leadership advised its membership to strike. Reagan gave them two days to return to work, then fired those who did not and ordered them permanently replaced. The strikers were originally barred from ever working for the government again, a ruling later modified. President Clinton lifted the lifetime ban in 1993.
Mr. Curran said in a 1996 letter to the editor of The Washington Post that he eventually came to believe the lifetime ban on rehiring the strikers was too harsh.
"That was his feeling," said his former supervisor, Charles Weithoner, who was the FAA's associate administrator for administration at the time. "He felt badly about it when it happened. He was a man of the people. [The strike] was not pleasant. On the other hand, he took an oath of office and signed it. . . . We thought most of them would come back [after Reagan's warning], but they didn't."
Mr. Curran was born in Chicago and worked as a stenographer for the labor relations staff of the Pullman Co. He served four years in the Air Force in the United States and Newfoundland. He returned from the military to Pullman as a labor relations professional. In 1959, he moved to Washington, working for the Washington Terminal Co., which operated Union Station.
He graduated from George Washington University and joined the FAA. He worked several years in the office of the secretary of transportation, then returned to the FAA in 1970. He rose to director of personnel there, the position he held at his 1991 retirement. He continued to consult on personnel and labor issues.
Mr. Curran was a member of St. Catherine's Catholic Church in Wheaton and, more recently, of Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Annandale. He was a member of the Wheaton Marching and Chowder Society, a social club in his Wheaton neighborhood.
He was an organ donor, and his wife said his liver has been transplanted into a 51-year-old woman in New York. His bone donation will help as many as 60 people, and his skin donations will be used for burn victims, she said.
His first wife, Marian Pasco Curran, died in 1992.
Survivors include his wife of 10 years, Carol Brooks Curran of Springfield; four children from his first marriage, Barbara Curran of Stamford, Conn., Nancy Dodson of Garden Grove, Calif., Mary Snyder of Eugene, Ore., and James Curran of Jacksonville, Fla.; two stepsons, David Brooks of Fairfax and Bryan Brooks of Richmond; two brothers; two sisters; eight grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
Comments