Stealth Attack Sunday Night Strands 16 Airplanes

Chicago's rabidly anti-GA Mayor, Richard M Daley held a brief news conference Monday afternoon, to explain why he apparently sent heavy equipment to Meigs Field late Sunday night. The Chicago Tribune's Casey Bukro said in its morning edition, "Meigs Field, the city's lakefront airport, was closed early today after construction vehicles showed up overnight and dug up large portions of the runway. At dawn, the view from the top of the Adler Planetarium showed a series of large, X-shaped portions of concrete carved out of the runway's center. Large, illuminated 'X' signs marked either end of the runway. Sixteen aircraft appeared stranded, parked along a taxiway and unable to take off."

Chicago's famous Police blocked the entrance to the airport.

The mayor has tried all sorts of legal and quasi-legal means to kill the gem of the lakefront, for several years now. Apparently the frustration of doing things within the system was too much for him to bear. Monday morning, the city awoke to find the runway destroyed.

We called Meigs, and asked, "What happpened to your airport?" We were connected, without comment, to the City's Aviation Department's spokeswoman, Monique Bond, who told us to wait for the Mayor's press conference, that "all responses will be coming out of the Mayor's office."

We called the Mayor's office -- 312-744-3334 -- We asked what had happened to the airport, and how the Mayor justified it. The lady at the office's press number didn't know when the conference was scheduled, but snipped, "The Mayor is going to have an availability later on today, OK?" I answered, "That's not OK," and hung up.

FAA spokesman Paul Turk explained that it's pretty much the city's deal: "Meigs is what we call an 'unobligated airport.' It gets no federal grant money, no federal facilities."

Just what happened is still a mystery to the FAA. "We're trying to sort this out with Homeland Security and some other folks. We continue to look into this; but, as of now, it appears we were not given any advance warning," he said.

Turk speculated (and we wrote it down): "There is a contract control tower on the field -- that's a potential issue for their employer."

No NOTAM

ANN has also learned that there was no NOTAM issued prior to the destruction of the airport -- the Mayor could have killed somebody. The NOTAM below was issued after destruction of the runways had commenced.

KCGX MERRILL C MEIGS
03/006 - AP CLSD 31 MAR 12:00 UNTIL UFN

NATCA Weighs In

Air traffic controllers blasted Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s unannounced forced closure of downtown lakefront Meigs Field under cloak of darkness Sunday night, assailing the stealth maneuver as a major step backwards for Chicago aviation and warning of a domino effect on traffic at neighboring airports.

"Mayor Daley bulldozed his way into aviation history this morning by destroying a national treasure and potentially causing unsafe flying conditions for the greater Chicagoland airspace," NATCA President John Carr said. "This reminds me of the Colts sneaking out of Baltimore by dead of night. Clearly, the mayor didn’t think his policy choices could either figuratively or literally withstand the light of day. It’s the epitome of arrogance."

Chicago media are reporting today that before midnight on Sunday, workers with construction equipment arrived at Meigs escorted by Chicago police and carved out large, X-shaped portions of concrete out of the center of the runway. Sixteen aircraft appeared stranded. Sources said under terms of a deal with then-Illinois Governor George Ryan in December 2001, Mayor Daley agreed to keep Meigs open until 2026.

"Mayor Daley has managed to do what terrorists couldn’t -- he permanently shut down an airport in the great city of Chicago," Carr said. "It’s just outrageous."

The monthly average air traffic volume at Meigs in 2002 was 1,564 instrument flight rules operations, meaning flights where pilots were in contact with air traffic control. But Meigs routinely became a much busier airport during events at the nearby McCormick Place convention center. In fact, last September, the airport handled 2,273 IFR operations.

"The problem with Meigs closing is those 1,500 operations are going to have to go somewhere else,” remarked Ray Gibbons, president of the local NATCA chapter at Chicago Terminal Radar Approach Control. “O’Hare and Midway airports are already operating above capacity. In fact, we are working more aircraft than we were before Sept. 11, 2001. Meigs’ closure adds complex and higher volumes of traffic to this area’s overburdened, understaffed facilities and sooner or later that understaffing will reach critical mass. At some point in time, the safety of the flying public will be compromised."

The FAA Statement:

We at the FAA were concerned to learn this morning of the decision to close Meigs Field. Already, we have heard from members of the general aviation community and we share their concern. Removing any centrally located airport such as Meigs from the system only diminishes capacity and puts added pressure on O'Hare and Midway airports.

The Mayor was reported to have said in his afternoon news conference that the airplanes left stranded at Meigs could leave on the "adjacent, parallel runway," provided the FAA gave permission. That "runway," Mr. Mayor (you nincompoop, sir), is a taxiway. A deliberately misleading statement like that was, no doubt, engineered to dupe the non-aviation press (and thus the public) into thinking that the destruction of the runway was no big deal.

What's going on? A TSA rep called us back Monday afternoon, and said, "We have no idea." The TSA referred us to the Department of Homeland Security, whose spokesman, Brian Roehrkasse, told us that the decision to wreck the airfield was apparently made in Chicago: "That decision did not originate with the Department of Homeland Security, or with the TSA," he said.

FMI: Chicago Tribune story, mayordaley@ci.chi.il.us; www.natca.org