Chicago – Fire Forces Closure of Airports

Flights were grounded at Chicago’s busy O’Hare and Midway airports this morning following a fire at an air traffic control facility. Departures from Chicago generally stopped at 5:35 a.m. CT and the only arrivals were a handful of flights that departed before the incident. As of 8:05 a.m. CT, about 13% of the daily schedule, or 446 flights, had been cancelled and another 107 delayed, numbers that are expected to rise considerably over the next few hours with ripple effects across the country.