Air Traffic Controller Exodus Stifling Airline Industry in Chicago, U.S.

[undatc]

I did a post in another forum about this.  Thought you all might be interested in it as well... So here goes, /soapbox

If you dont read any of this article, at least read this quote, it tells it all;

“At O’Hare, there should be 71 controllers in the tower. Right now there are only 43 and 18 of those could possibly retire,” Richards said. He added that while there are 16 trainees, its going to take two years to train them."

That right there is the cold hard truth. Tomorrow morning those 18 people could walk in and say audios and the FAA would be left with 25 controllers out of 79. Thats 31% staffed right now at our nations 2nd busiest airport. This is safe?  What is really telling of all this, is that the NTSB, the GAO, NATCA, congress, and a whole bunch of other acronyms i dont feel like writing out have been saying this for a long time.  Why isn't the FAA listening?!?!?!

You can make a difference.  Go here,

http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/

find your congressman/woman and tell them that this is unacceptable and to endorse the most recent house/senate bills to force the FAA back to the contract tables, and to rehire the controllers they have driven away.


http://www.midwestbusiness.com/news/viewnews.asp?newsletterID=18659

CHICAGO – On Aug. 26, 2006, 35-year-old airplane captain Jeffery Clay spent the evening dining with his wife and two children. After dinner, he went back to his hotel to catch some needed sleep for his 4:15 a.m. wake-up call. One last time, though, he picked up the phone and spoke to his wife. That call lasted four minutes.

Mrs. Clay would never again speak to her husband. The short evening phone call would be their last.

Captain Clay reported for work at 5:15 a.m., but at 6:07 a.m., he would be killed along with 48 other passengers and crew at Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Ky. When Comair flight 5191 ran out of runway, the captain could be heard shouting an expletive. At the same time, the plane’s black-box recorder caught the sound of it hitting an embankment.

The crash occurred because the plane was set to take off from runway 22, but instead, the crew aligned the aircraft at runway 26. It was an unused, unlit and short runway. Though the accident in Lexington was blamed on pilot error, there was only one air traffic controller working the tower that morning.

“The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) didn’t give the controller an error. There were all these extra duties that he shouldn’t have been in charge of,” said Bob Richards, a retired air traffic controller, in an interview with MidwestBusiness.com.

Richards – a controller at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago for 22 years – says the error may have been caught if another controller had been working in the Lexington tower. His recently released book entitled “Secrets From the Tower” chronicles a behind-the-scenes look into the life of an air traffic controller at O’Hare and details how being a controller affected his personal life.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation of the crash revealed that the controller had cleared the plane for takeoff and then turned his back on the runway to work on administrative duties. The next time he saw Comair flight 5191 was after it had burst into flames following the crash.

Such incidents are on the rise, according to a Washington, D.C.-based Congressional watchdog agency. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report on Dec. 5, 2007 concluding that runway incursions are on the rise due to a lack of appropriate technology, poor federal leadership and overworked and understaffed air traffic controllers.

The GAO reported that runway incursions where collisions were narrowly avoided suggest a “high risk” for disaster. Richards added: “Change will probably be born out of some tragedy.” On Aug. 16, 2007 at Los Angeles International Airport, two planes carrying 296 people came within 37 feet of colliding.

The study reported that the number and rate of incursions declined after reaching a peak in 2001 and remained constant for the next five years. The GAO study added: “Preliminary data for fiscal year 2007 indicate that the overall incursion rate increased during fiscal year 2007 and is nearly as high as the fiscal year 2001 peak.”

According to the FAA, 54 percent of incursions from 2003 through 2006 were caused by pilot errors, 29 percent were caused by air traffic controller errors and vehicle operators or pedestrian errors caused 17 percent.

Demand for air travel is on the rise. The GAO report requests that the FAA develop a strategy to enhance runway safety as the number of airline travelers is expected to exceed 1 billion by 2015.

Amid the GAO report, air traffic controllers are retiring in great numbers. In 2007, more than 825 controllers have retired and almost 90 percent of the 15,000 current controllers are expected to retire in the coming years. While the FAA holds its controllers to mandatory retirement at age 56, many controllers are leaving the job before that.

In 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired 12,000 air traffic controllers who went on strike due to contract negotiations. Reagan then recruited and hired replacement controllers who are now reaching the regulatory retirement age.

Another reason for the controller exodus is an FAA-imposed labor contract that was enacted in 2006. The contract cut pay for new controllers, imposed a pay freeze on current employees and restricts controller work apparel.

John Hansman – professor of aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (he also serves on the FAA’s Research, Engineering & Development Advisory Committee) – thinks the large retirement is coming because of frustration with contracts. He also says the FAA needs to hire 1,500 controllers a year to keep up staffing levels. From 2004 to 2005, though, the FAA only hired 14 controllers.

The FAA itself takes the opposite position and says enrollment in air traffic programs is up approximately 4 percent around the country. Still, more than 1,550 controllers have retired in fiscal year 2007. Hansman added in an interview with MidwestBusiness.com: “Training is done by the older controllers. Now that many are retiring, what do you do? You get into a descending spiral.”

He says another problem is that is takes two to five years to train a controller. As the staffing shortages are pressuring controllers to work longer hours, this leads to fatigue. The GAO report states this as one of its major concerns for runway incursions.

“Air traffic controller fatigue continues to be a human factor’s issue affecting runway safety,” the GAO report states. “We found that as of May 2007 at least 20 percent of the controllers at 25 air traffic control facilities – including towers at several of the country’s busiest airports – were regularly working six-day weeks.”

“The facts are crystal clear: Both the NTSB and the GAO are now on record saying controller fatigue affects runway safety,” said National Air Traffic Control Association President Patrick Forray in a statement that responded to the GAO report. “Now the GAO has said fatigue is created by working overtime, which in turn is necessitated by staffing shortages.”

Richards – a retired controller – says that while he was working the O’Hare tower he knew “four controllers who had heart attacks, two controllers who got cancer and five people have heart arrhythmias”. Years ago, medical conditions would have prevented controllers from working and he says conditions are “certainly bad at O’Hare”.

The GAO report ranked O’Hare the second highest in the nation for near misses on the runway and in the skies and cites one reason as decreased safety efforts by the FAA.

“The government is reluctant to do the things they need to do to make change,” Richards said. He says O’Hare still uses a 30-year-old system of paper tracts to keep watch of planes. He added: “We have headsets that are on long, tangled up cords.”

O’Hare and Chicago controllers have been a focus since Nov. 2007 when there were two close calls involving aircraft and controllers. The first was a near collision at 25,000 feet between two jets traveling over Indiana and the second – just days later – was a near mid-air collision between two small passenger planes.

“At O’Hare, there should be 71 controllers in the tower. Right now there are only 43 and 18 of those could possibly retire,” Richards said. He added that while there are 16 trainees, its going to take two years to train them.

Peter Roskam’s 6th Congressional district includes O’Hare and the freshman U.S. representative is pushing for change at the nation’s second-busiest airport. His problem with the airport, though, is not the lack of security or flight delays. It is Chicago-area air traffic controllers.

“Any air traffic control mistake that resulted in a mid-air collision would be a tragedy not only for those on board the airplanes but also for those who live and work around the crash site. The aftermath of a mid-air collision could be devastating to my Congressional district,” Roskam wrote on Nov. 20, 2007 in a formal letter to FAA COO Henry Krakowski.

In response to the Dec. 5 GAO report, Roskam has written two more letters.

On Dec. 6, he expressed concern for his “constituents in light of the GAO report”. Roskam then “insists” that the FAA inform him on what’s being done about air traffic controller staffing levels. On Dec. 11, Roskam posted an opinion article on his Web site citing the declining staff level of controllers at O’Hare.

“I will continue to hold the FAA accountable for its performance and require such foresight. The matter is of the utmost importance to the people of the sixth Congressional district and the larger Chicagoland area,” Roskam said.

The controller staffing issue is not the only problem plaguing O’Hare. Its 12-year-old radar system (“Airport Surveillance Radar 9”) is of concern as well as it’s the only system monitoring the entirety of planes traveling over O’Hare air space. In comparison, Atlanta and Dallas operate with several radar systems.

The airport does have a new ground control radar system that keeps track of on-ground aircraft traffic.

On Dec. 15, 2006, O’Hare’s radar system was down for more than four hours. This caused major delays in Chicago as well as across the nation. Controllers at O’Hare lost in-air flights for nearly five minutes. Controllers had to use Midway Airport’s radar system in Tinley Park, Ill., which doesn’t cover all of O’Hare’s air space.

By STEPHANIE HULS
Staff Writer
steph@midwestbusiness.com

[Baradium]

News was squaking about another runway incursion in Atlanta today.   Plane crossed the runway ahead of another plane on its takeoff roll.

[undatc]

News was squaking about another runway incursion in Atlanta today.   Plane crossed the runway ahead of another plane on its takeoff roll.

Keep an ear out.  You're going to hear about a lot more of them until something gets fixed.

[Oddball]

is this situation typical over there? and how many training schools for atc's are there? must be new bloods coming up through the ranks to fill in the spaces left

[undatc]

This has been typical for the last couple of years.  Many of the issues have resulted because of the imposed contract the FAA has forced on the union.  They have made working conditions so poor, controllers are bailing by the hundreds.  Last year nearly 1400 controllers either retired or outright quit, about 10% of the workforce.  Thats a huge number when nationally there were only about 14,000 total.

The FAA is so desperate right now for bodies, they are hiring off the street.  Prior to 2007, the only way to become an atcer was to go to a specialized school and get a degree in it.  The issue isnt bodies, there are plenty of people that still want the job, the problem is training them.  Some places it takes up to 5 years to train a newbie in.  Figure that in to the fact that the people training the developmentals are retiring because the FAA has screwed them over, and now were in a vicious cycle.

[Oddball]

so they are just taking "regular joes" off the street and putting them untrained in a highly skilled area? those nuts in the FAA must be nuts to do some thing like that 

[undatc]

so they are just taking "regular joes" off the street and putting them untrained in a highly skilled area? those nuts in the FAA must be nuts to do some thing like that 

Well, not quite.  They still spend between 9-17 weeks in Oklahoma in the FAA academy and then go into training at their facility, but they lack the degree and knowledge that the rest of us have.

FYI, all CTI student also go to Oklahoma.

[Fabo]

Now that is some serious s*^&t you have over there... Better be using the old-fashioned ship way, or take a plane to Canada and go by train

[Baradium]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-7235851,00.html

FAA: Planes Have Close Call Near Newark

Friday January 18, 2008 3:16 AM


By DAVID PORTER

Associated Press Writer

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) - An air traffic controller mistakenly gave a passenger jet the frequency for the wrong airport, an error that put that plane and another landing at Newark Liberty International Airport much closer than they should have been, authorities said Thursday.

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the near miss, which occurred at 2:10 p.m. Wednesday between a Boeing 737 and an Embraer 145. The Boeing operated as Continental Flight 536 arriving from Phoenix and the Embraer was Continental Express Flight 2614 arriving from Halifax, Nova Scotia.

According to FAA spokesman Jim Peters, an air traffic controller at the New York Terminal Radar Approach center on Long Island, which guides planes landing at New York area airports before turning them over to airport towers, mistakenly gave the Continental Express crew the frequency for the tower at nearby Teterboro Airport instead of the Newark airport.

As a result, the Newark tower was temporarily unable to contact the crew as both planes approached Newark. They eventually were separated by 1\ horizontal miles, or less than half the three-mile nose-to-tail requirement set by the FAA for planes landing at the airport, Peters said.

In addition, the planes were 600 feet apart in altitude, much closer than the minimum required vertical separation of 1,000 feet.

Both planes landed safely and arrived at the gate about 15 minutes apart, according to Continental.

Ray Adams, vice president of the air traffic controllers union at the Newark airport, rejected the FAA's preliminary conclusion and attributed the incident to the FAA's procedures for landings at Newark.

``We're disputing the fact that the controller made an error,'' Adams said.

In December, a plane landing on a Newark Liberty runway had to adjust its landing to fly over a plane that had taxied into its path. The planes came within about 300 feet of each other.

[undatc]

It keeps on happening.  I forget where,, but somewhere up in that North Eastern corridor there is a departure/arrivial procedure that is really messed up and if everything works correctly (or i guess it would actually be incorrectly) legally puts two aircraft within 1 mile and 500 feet of each other (or something close to that.)  I'll try to find the article on it.  May take me a couple of days...

[undatc]

This aired yesterday in SoCal.

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local&id=5911070

Im not sure who that Ian guy is from the FAA, but he needs to get his facts straight..... 

[Rooster Cruiser]

<Shaking Head>  My ATC buddies are extremely unhappy over this entire situation.  This big retirement has been looming on the horizon for a long time, yet the FAA has literally sat on its hands and refused to hire new ATC staff in order to get them in the pipeline to replace the retirees in a timely fashion.  The FAA has done this for so long, I suspect that the FAA is (or was) counting on some kind of NextGen ATC system to be coming online soon that will make everything all Honky-Dory like some Fairy Godmother waving her magic wand.   

The bureaucrats and techy types in Washington DC have forgotton how cumbersome and inefficient their bureaucracy is, and that multi-year delays are the norm rather the exception for the FAA.  Perhaps FAA and its DOT masters were counting on privatizing the Air Traffic Control system as part of a massive re-structuring of the FAA being debated in Congress.  However, given the sorry performance Lockheed Martin has managed to turn in after taking over the Flight Service Stations in the USA, I seriously doubt Congress would be foolish enough to make the same mistake twice.

So the FAA has waved away all recent concerns with a "We don't wanna hear it, we're gonna privatize it and forget all about it" attitude, and now the chickens are coming home to roost.  Recent airline delays will be mild compared to the perfect storm of ground holds that will paralyze the airline system because there are simply too few controllers available to handle the traffic.

I and other pilots that make their way through Oakland and LA Center airspace have noticed how their flexibility has decreased in recent years.  Lots of high altitude routes and flight levels I used to use are simply no longer available.  When I ask, I am told it is due to increased traffic, but I am increasingly of the opinion it is due to there being fewer controllers on hand at any one time. 

Stay tuned for the fireworks to come, folks.   

[undatc]

I would expect the delays in SoCal to be horrible during the coming year.  ZOA (Oakland Center) is short over 100 ATCS's.  However the FAA says they are full staffed, why?  They have over 120 Trainees, a trainee is not a CONTROLLER!  He/she cannot work alone EVER, except on positions they are already certified on, which given the lack of people to train, is very few if any.

And really the FAA did this on purpose.  The planned this all out, and now they realized they shot themselves in the foot.  Dont believe me that the FAA intentionally set all this up, read this and then download the document thats posted and read that:

http://themainbang.typepad.com/blog/2007/12/blueprint-for-c.html

Here is the document and the post in short;

1 ) to become a controller, the FAA until 2006, required you to go to a CTI school, of which there were only 11 in the country.  In some cases those degrees (like mine) ran close to 100k

2 ) the FAA refused to hire all those grads starting in about 1998 and hired a total of 4 developmentals between 98 & 2005

3 ) thus the FAA created a HUGE pool of very desperate college grads that couldnt use their degrees in anything but ATC, since our degrees are so specialized and no one else employess controllers but the FAA (contract towers require on average 5 years experience and several licenses that you cant get till you are an FAA controller, and DoD jobs are the same)

4 ) in 2006 the FAA and NATCA had the big fall out and in turn the FAA imposed their contract.  Now the juicy stuff starts...

5 ) because congress failed to act, the FAA cut new controller pay by over 30%, thus reducing my starting salary at the academy to about 8 bucks an hour, and me as a AG at my facility to about 32k a year.  Considerably less than the 70k they told me when I signed up for this degree

6 ) since this large pool of very in debt college grads is sitting around, we'll take just about anything anyone throws at us, and so we did, they are hiring CTI grads as fast as they can, however the schools (which the FAA also increased in 2007 to 33 from 11) cant produce enough, solution?

7 ) off the street hiring, now you no longer need a degree to do this job.  any one of you, thats a US citizen and not over the age of 31 (thou they have waived some people) can apply, take the AT-SAT and probably see Oklahoma before I do, this now creates a rift between the CTI guys and the OTS guys, we're pissed off that we spent all this money and the FAA lied to us

8 ) since the FAA now has enough bodies to 'fill' facilities, lets screw over current controller, the FAA cut their pay, took away incentive pays, and all kinds of other things, this now has the ATCS's pissed off too, so after 20 years they are saying buhbye, which after Reagan hired the new guys is right about NOW!

9 ) now that many ATCS's are jumping ship, you are seeing staffing ratios go way down, and new developmentals aren't getting proper training.  Further more since the new guys dont have experience the system doesn't run as smoothly as before.  To ensure separation a new CPC might throw in a couple extra miles to make sure there is no chance of having a deal. And the more new guys we put in, the worse this is going to get.

10 ) The FAA now has what it wants, a completely divided workforce that hates each other, as well as the FAA.  In a recent survey by the OBM, the FAA ranked the SECOND worst place in the Federal Government to work.  Thats pretty bad folks when even the postal service can beat us. (That was a joke btw, they are a pretty sweet gig if you can be a letter carrier)

In a more recent post by one of my friends an FAA manager actually comes out and says that the FAA isn't adequately training newly certified controllers.

http://www.faafollies.com/?p=374

The FAA created this problem, and its getting worse.  We havent even begun to see the bottom of this downward spiral.  Hopefully we're flying a Cirrus and we can pull the chute.

[Stef727]

Hey all, I am the reporter who wrote this story. I am still working on furthering my info so if anyone is interested in being interviewed please email me.
steph@midwestbusiness.com

[Zaffex]

Hey all, I am the reporter who wrote this story. I am still working on furthering my info so if anyone is interested in being interviewed please email me.
steph@midwestbusiness.com

Which story? It appears that there are several articles presented.