Airport Controllers Fall Ill Over Fumes
About 25 flights into and out of Kansas City International Airport were delayed Friday night as fumes sickened air traffic controllers and forced an evacuation of the airport’s control tower, airport officials said.
A temporary control tower was set up for visual guidance. Primary control of the airspace was picked up by a control tower in Olathe, Kan., about 40 miles south of Kansas City, allowing departures and arrivals to resume after several hours, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said.
It was determined that a chemical called ethylene glycol used in de-icing airplanes was seeping into the control tower, and controllers vacated the facility.
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