FAA facility fire to affect Pres. Obama travel; 911 calls released

AURORA, Ill. (WLS) -- The fallout from the sabotage of suspect Brian Howard that triggered airport chaos is impacting [url HREF="http://abc7.ws/1Bz9pi0" TARGET="_blank" REL=""]President Obama as he prepares to travel to Chicago[/url] Wednesday. His plans have changed because of the slowdown in air traffic.[br /][br /]With the FAA under fire, the president and his sizable entourage are electing not to make a bad situation worse. For the first time as president, Obama is choosing to travel into the far-less congested airport in northwest Indiana.[br /][br /]The presidential plane won't be landing at O'Hare International Airport on Wednesday. Instead Air Force One is being rerouted 56 miles away to the airport in Gary, Indiana. The White House says it is to minimize the impact on Chicago's already strained air traffic control system.[br /][br /]That news came as a friend of sabotage suspect Brian Howard, who called 911 Friday morning after reading his alarming Facebook post from inside the FAA control center in Aurora, spoke out. [br /][br /]"It did seem like, I don't know, that like we only had a little bit of time. And it's been about a half hour since he posted that," the friend told the 911 operator. "I probably should have just called you guys right away."[br /][br /]The Chicago Tribune obtained Howard's entire Facebook message, which shows his apparent miscalculation of the damage he could do.[br /][br /]"The outage I'm about to take should not take a large toll on the air space as all comms should be switched to the alt location," the message reads. "That being said, who knows what else will become a factor due to gov't employees being in control of the upcoming situation. Many of them live up to exactly how they are viewed by the public, lazy and useless."[br /][br /]Within a half hour of that post a call from inside the air traffic control center.[br /][br /]"We've got smoke in the building, so we need the fire department down here," the caller said.[br /][br /]Howard is charged with destruction of aircraft facilities. He [url HREF="[br /]http://abc7.ws/10eVhPu" TARGET="_blank" REL=""]appeared in court Monday, and is being held without bond[/url]. His attorney conceded Howard tried to kill himself after allegedly setting the fire, which could be an attempt to set up a defense that Howard is mentally ill. Some legal experts say that's hard to prove. [br /][br /]"Questions will be: Did he have control of his actions? Did he know right from wrong? Clearly there's some evidence he did because of the Facebook posts," said Harold Krent, ITT Chicago-Kent Law School.[br /][br /]As for flights, FAA numbers show no improvement. Tuesday, O'Hare was able to handle roughly 80 percent of typical traffic, the same as Monday. Another 281 flights were cancelled in Chicago Tuesday and delays continue, as well.[br /][br /]Repairs at the Aurora facility will take weeks.[br /]