Editorials.(News)(Editorial)

0 Comments | Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL), January, 2007

Passenger safety must be the top goal The news was not good last week when Daily Herald staff writer Joseph Ryan reported that air traffic controller mistakes for planes at O'Hare International Airport nearly doubled in 2006 from the previous year. Even more disturbing was the response by the controllers as to what caused the spike.

According to Ryan's story, the Federal Aviation Administration released figures late last week that showed there were 41 errors in 2006 compared to 21 a year earlier. And that increase comes when O'Hare's traffic is down about 1.4 percent. Ray Gibbons, the union leader for controllers at O'Hare's radar facility in Elgin, is correct when he said: "It is certainly not a good trend." But he goes on to say that intense...