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From the Chicago Tribune

FAA limits no-fly zone over Chicago

But city officials say banned area isn't big enough By Rogers Worthington, Tribune staff reporter. Tribune Transportation Writer Jon Hilkevitch contributed to this report

October 31, 2001

Federal aviation officials agreed Tuesday to a limited ban on flights over downtown Chicago, but the protected area was far less than what the city had requested.

The restrictions, which affect flights by most small aircraft, cover a semicircular area extending 1.7 miles east, north and south from the Sears Tower. The area includes the Loop, Navy Pier, parts of the Near North and Near South Sides, and the city's heaviest concentration of tall buildings.

But city Aviation Commissioner Thomas Walker had requested a larger no-fly zone that extended 5 miles in all directions from Navy Pier at its center. That zone would have taken in Wrigley Field to the north, Comiskey Park to the south and the area's water-intake facilities to the east on Lake Michigan.

"Clearly, it's not all that we had hoped for," said Rod Sierra, a spokesman for the city. "I guess under the circumstances we'll have to monitor how it goes with the 1.7-mile ban and see where we go from there,"

The Federal Aviation Administration's compromise came a day after U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft announced a heightened alert for terrorist threats and on the same day that the FAA issued a flight ban around nuclear plants, Sierra noted.

"Yet they are reducing the ban around downtown Chicago, where there are skyscrapers, high-rise buildings and residents living along Chicago's lakefront," he said.

On Oct. 11, the FAA began easing the restrictions on private planes that it imposed following the September terrorist attacks. It allowed small aircraft using so-called instrument flight rules, or IFR, to resume flying. But the decision affected only about 10 percent of all flights by private aircraft, generally charters or commercial planes.

Last week, federal officials eliminated most of the remaining restrictions on small aircraft.

But Mayor Richard Daley and Walker objected, voicing concern that downtown buildings might be in danger if small airplanes are allowed to fly at will over the heart of the city.

Daley argued that tighter restrictions remained in place in Boston, New York, and Washington at the same time they were being relaxed in Chicago.

Copyright © 2001, Chicago Tribune

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), October 31, 2001