Ouch! $10,000 Fine.

Washington Gas, a Virginia-based business is being fined $10,400 for letting the lights go out on its antenna and not notifying federal flight authorities right away. The company was cited by the Federal Communications Commission this week over a lighting outage on its antenna structure located in Prince Frederick, Md. “Washington Gas does not dispute the violations, but requests a forfeiture reduction because it purportedly notified the FAA of the lighting outage prior to the Enforcement Bureau’s investigation and has a history of compliance with the Commission’s rules. While we are not persuaded that Washington Gas notified the FAA of the lighting outage in a timely manner, we find that its history of compliance warrants a forfeiture reduction,” the FCC Forfeiture Order explains. On September 1, 2011 the Enforcement Bureau’s Columbia Office issued a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture to Washington Gas proposing the $13,000 forfeiture. Since the FCC reviewed the company and found no previous violation of the Rules, they decided to reduce the proposed forfeiture by $2,600.