The Nation - News from June 9, 1988

Federal safety inspectors are launching a special investigation of air-traffic controller errors at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport because of an unexplained jump in their mistakes, an official said. Mike Benson, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board in Washington, said that controllers have made 20 errors in routing jets in the congested sky over the Chicago area already this year. That was more mistakes than O’Hare controllers made in all of last year, which Benson said was a total of 12. The National Air Traffic Controllers Assn. in Washington said O’Hare, like other airports nationwide, is plagued by short staffing and overworked controllers.