Man Who Set Fire At Chicago Center To Plead Guilty

The FAA contractor who started a fire at the Chicago Air Route Traffic Control Center during a suicide attempt last fall will plead guilty to federal charges in June. In court on Thursday, Brian Howard's attorney entered a not guilty plea as a formality that buys time to process a deal with prosecutors, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. A guilty plea planned for June 4 will then give Howard access to mental health treatment in prison.On Sept. 26, 2014, Howard entered the facility in Aurora with gasoline and a knife, cut communication lines, set a fire and cut his throat and wrists. The fire was extinguished less than three hours later, but it disrupted traffic over several states under Chicago Center's coverage and ATC staffers had to relocate temporarily. The FAA has since beefed up contingency plans to better prepare for emergencies.

Howard's attorney, Ron Safer, said Howard is "extremely remorseful" about the chaos he caused, the Sun-Times reported. "He believed the facility would be out of service for hours and cause a minor disruption. He never dreamed this would happen, nor that he would be alive to see it," Safer told a federal judge. The newspaper also quoted Howard's Facebook posting just before his attempted suicide, which said that he thought government employees' reaction to his sabotage would make matters worse. "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 which will most likely cause some delays," he wrote. "That being said, who knows what else will become a factor due to gov't employees being in control of the upcoming situation."