Berlin Airport Fiasco Shows Chinks in German Engineering Armor
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Faulty fire protection, lights that won’t go off and an overlooked nuclear reactor are just a few of the hurdles holding up the new airport in Berlin that is tarnishing Germany’s reputation for industrial derring-do.
Designed to befit a capital that attracts more than 10 million visitors every year as Europe’s No. 3 city destination after London and Paris, the airport was built to handle 27 million passengers annually and first scheduled to be operational in 2011. A new date hasn’t been set after construction and planning faults made a June start impossible.