They'd staged it, the numbskulls, so that the Estradas' CHIP was going round and round on the ramp.  Nobody on the outside knew that so nobody would have to lug those TV cameras up there.  They'd also been putting car and truck batteries powering AM/FM RADIOS in the Le Brea Tarpits welcome "cash & carry" to flyover and drop metallic'd plates and bars (weights and measures; ways and means budgetary purse strings).  It wasn't chaos, but the "black" that Rock Hudson was trying to make way through wasn't human-made.  A solar calendar fluke was blocking daylight at the equator parallels as other militaries tried to remove their property from the ownership status of "English Law" hence trips to tents on other Continents.