Newark, NJ – It happened exactly a week ago tonight, and the FAA does not dispute any of it. Air traffic controllers were forced to keep working while suffering the effects of potentially deadly carbon monoxide over the course of four hours. They handled as many as two hundred planes.
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“It was like a fog,” said controller Ray Maldonado.
Ray Maldonado was so confused he can barely remember what he did that night. John Conklin says it was a struggle.
“Sometimes it felt like I couldn’t clearly put together something that I’d normally would have. You know what I mean?” Conklin said.
Both men were directing large commercial airliners into and out of Newark Airport from FAA’s air traffic control center known as Tracon. They later learned that a test of the facility’s backup generator sent exhaust fumes into the building’s ventilation system, slowly filling the room with potentially-deadly carbon monoxide.
“I remember just being extremely fatigued … very tired, very sleepy. It took a lot to stay awake that night,” Maldonado said. [wabc]
This is sick. A federally appointed agency takes no responsibilty here?!?
What a terribly dangerous situation, not only did it jeopardize the air traffic controllers lives, but, if they were impaired they could have caused a tragedy up in the air chas vesholom.