This Day in FAA History: September 12th

Full FAA Chronology at this link.
19840912: Airline representatives reached agreement on rescheduling flights to avoid congestion during peak hours at six major airports: New York’s La Guardia and Kennedy; Newark International; Chicago O’Hare; Atlanta Hartsfield; and Denver Stapleton. The representatives forged the agreement in eight days of intense negotiations with FAA participation and with the understanding that FAA might impose new regulations if no voluntary solution was found. The Civil Aeronautics Board granted immunity from anti-trust laws to those engaged in the talks, and later approved the agreement. Writing to the Air Transport Association on March 12, 1985, FAA Administrator Engen cited steps taken to reduce delays and indications that the airlines would not return to excess peak-time operations. Engen therefore stated that the scheduling agreement need not continue beyond April 1.
19940912: A pilot flying a stolen Cessna 150 crashed a few yards from the White House, dying on impact.
19950912: Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) introduced a bill to reform FAA while keeping it within DOT. The bill gave the agency more flexibility in personnel and acquisition matters (an approach that was also part of a bill to provide DOT’s fiscal 1996 appropriation: see November 15, 1995). The McCain bill also provided for a system of financing FAA that emphasized fees for services. The Secretary of Transportation and FAA Administrator immediately endorsed the bill, a position that marked the Clinton Administration’s shift away from its drive to create a government corporation for air traffic control (see May 3, 1994).
20010912: Department of Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta announced FAA would allow a limited reopening of the nation’s commercial airspace system to allow flights diverted the day before to continue to their original destinations. The Secretary announced FAA was temporarily extending the ground stop order imposed the previous day, while it initiated additional security measures. Mineta said FAA would permit flights only in special limited circumstances. Flights diverted as a result of yesterday’s ground stop would be allowed to continue to their original destination under vastly tightened security guidelines. Only passengers on the original flights would be allowed to re-board, and only after airports and airlines had implemented strict screening measures. Mineta said a variety of stepped-up security measures would be instituted at the airports once they re-opened. Those measures included
* A thorough search and security check of all airplanes and airports before passengers were allowed to enter and board aircraft.
* Discontinuance of curbside check-in at the airport.
* Discontinuance of off-airport check-in.
* Only ticketed passengers would be allowed to proceed past airport screeners to catch their flights.
* Vehicles near airport terminals would be monitored more closely. (See September 11, 2001; September 14, 2001.)
20090912: A new wide-area multilateration surveillance system began operating at Colorado’s Yampa Valley-Hayden, Craig-Moffat, Steamboat Springs, and Garfield County Regional-Rifle airports. The system allowed air traffic controllers to track aircraft not covered by radar in remote, mountainous regions. FAA and the Colorado Department of Transportation shared the cost of the system. (See May 4, 2010.)
20130912: ConocoPhillips made the first commercial flight of an unmanned aircraft. Under a restricted category type certification FAA awarded in July, ConocoPhillips launched an Insitu ScanEagle from the research vessel Westward Wind in the Chukchi Sea, part of the Arctic Ocean west of Alaska, to monitor whale migrations and ice flows in the Chukchi Sea. FAA had an agreement with ConocoPhillips to collect data about the UAVs flight operations. (See July 19, 2013; October 15, 2013.)