If you think the problems at Terminal 5 are anything new, Jeff Atwood has a great article highlighting a rather similar scenario at Denver in 1994. The similarities are uncanny, even down to all the over-hyping that proves to be spectacularly misplaced once problems hit the system, in the case of T5 being staff who due to other technical issues couldn’t do their jobs. At that point the system has just backed up totally, such that there are now 15,000 bags piling up at the airport. As Jeff quotes in his article – “It wasn’t the technology per se, it was a misplaced faith in it.”