Sept. 11--Dan Palmer was in a rental car somewhere east of Tulsa, Okla., when he got the call last September that his sister had died of cancer before he could reach her Dallas home to say goodbye.
Palmer, of west suburban Bartlett, was driving to Texas because his flight had been canceled in the wake of a fire at an Aurora radar tower that cut crucial communications to more than 100 planes in the air and plunged the nation's air travel system into chaos.
In federal court in Chicago on Friday, Palmer sobbed as he turned to the Naperville man who sabotaged the facility, Brian Howard, and told him how he never got the chance to see his sister one last time.
"I want Mr. Howard to know how his actions affected many people in many ways that he cannot even imagine," Palmer said through tears.
Palmer's testimony was just one of many emotional moments at a lengthy sentencing hearing for Howard, who pleaded guilty to setting fire to the Aurora radar tower in a botched suicide attempt last year, knocking out crucial telecommunications systems as 135 jets traveled through Midwest airspace.
After 2 1/2 hours of argument and testimony, U.S. District Judge Gary Feinerman sentenced Howard to 12 1/2 years in prison.
Howard read a lengthy statement to the court apologizing for his actions, blaming them on a "fog" of depression.
"I lost myself and I snapped. I decided to take my own life," he said in a clear voice as he read from several pages of handwritten notes. "I did not act out of anger. I acted out of despair. I cannot explain why I did it."
Howard insisted that he thought communications would be out for only a few minutes before they would be automatically transferred to another facility. He said he intended to "create a headache" for his company but "did not intend to put any plane or person in danger."
Near the end of his statement, Howard, who is in custody , turned to the courtroom gallery intending to apologize to Palmer for depriving him of seeing his dying sister one last time. But Palmer had left the courthouse during a break a half-hour earlier.
"I'm sorry, where is Mr. Palmer?" Howard said before turning back to his notes.
Prosecutors wanted Howard sentenced to 13 years in prison, arguing that he put thousands of airline passengers in jeopardy and caused flight delays and millions of dollars in damage when he set fire to the radar facility where he worked as a telecommunications contractor for the Federal Aviation Administration.
His attorney, Ronald Safer, asked Feinerman in a filing last month to sentence Howard to no more than the mandatory minimum of 10 years.
Howard, 37, pleaded guilty in May to willfully damaging an air navigation facility and using fire to commit a federal felony.
According to an FBI affidavit, Howard arrived at the Aurora radar center about 5 a.m. Sept. 26. About 30 minutes later, he posted a Facebook message in which he said he planned to kill himself and threatened to take down ZAU, a reference to the control center's three-letter call signal.
"Take a hard look in the mirror, I have," Howard allegedly wrote in the post. "And this is why I am about to take out ZAU and my life. April, Pop, love you guys and I'm sorry. Leaving you with a big mess. Do your best to quickly move on from me please. Feel like I give a (expletive) for the first time in a long time again ... but not for too long (haha!) So I'm gonna smoke this blunt and move on, take care everyone."
According to prosecutors, Howard went to the basement of the center and lifted up a floorboard to gain access to critical communications systems. He cut cables with wire cutters, then poured gasoline on a towel, wrapped it around the cables and lit the area on fire. Howard then slit his throat and wrists with a knife.
According to prosecutors, Howard had deliberately cut cables at precisely the most sensitive spot, knocking out the backup telecommunications system in addition to the primary one. Radars went black. The automated handoff system to transfer control of planes to other facilities was down. Even ground-to-ground communications were wiped out.
What followed was a controlled panic, as FAA controllers used cellphones and other backup devices to ground planes and turn back hundreds of others about to enter Chicago's airspace. The contingency plan worked -- no planes were lost and no one was reported injured. But severe damage had been done.
"There has never been an outage of the resulting magnitude like the outage (Howard) caused by attacking the Chicago Center," prosecutors said in a filing last month.
His actions shut down a key cog in the nation's air traffic system, disrupting flights and leading to thousands of flight cancellations and delays over the following days. Repairs took 17 days before the radar center could reopen.
jmeisner@tribpub.com
