“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."
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
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.
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 ::eek:: ::unbelieveable:: ::loony:: ::complaining: ::banghead::
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.
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.Which story? It appears that there are several articles presented.
steph@midwestbusiness.com
Which story? It appears that there are several articles presented.
Which story? It appears that there are several articles presented.
She would be referring to the original post I made.
Also, Senate Bill 1300 is on the docket for discussion this month. This bill would close the loop hole the FAA exploited, and also force them back to the table.CALL your congressman and tell them to SUPPORT S 1300!!!
Section 106 -.
Directs the FAA to impose, with specified exceptions, a surcharge of $25 per flight on owners or operators of passenger aircraft and to deposit such amounts in an Air Modernization Fund to modernize the air traffic control system and implement Next Generation Air Transportation System projects. Authorizes the Secretary of Transportation (Secretary) to borrow up to $5 billion to finance capital investments in the FAA's air traffic control system.
....Unfortunately the bill still includes the $25 user fee on IFR flight plans for all turbine-powered aircraft. Many observers, however, feel an expected amendment to do away with the user fee has a good chance of passing when S. 1300 is debated on the Senate floor....
Exceptions
(1) Military and other public certain other aircraft. - A surcharge may not be assessed under this ection of military aircraft, public aircraft (as defined in section 40102 of this sub title), air ambulance aircraft, agricultural aircraft, or for military or non commercial civil aircraft of a foreign government.
(2) Exemption Applicability. - A surcharge may not be assessed under this section for -
a) pistion engined aircraft; or
b) turbo prop or turbo shaft aircraft operating outside controlled airspace
(5) intrastate flights - ..... a surcharge may not be applied to a any flight that originate or terminate at an airport or in airpot that is not controlled by a TRACON roa combined center/radar approach control facility.
The thing is, if you don't support this bill, it may well be the last straw in which the FAA cannot recover ATC, and it cascades towards privatization. Welcome to navcan people where the fees are sometimes double or triple that which are purposed in this bill. Take the lesser of two evils. A small user fee, or the very real possibility that in the near future we may be presented with a privatized air traffic system.
So basically this should never apply to GA. Because of the following;
1) most GA fly VFR, therefore you never talk to ATC, so no surcharge
2) if your flight begins or ends at a non-controlled airport, or an airport that does not have a TRACON, no surcharge
I'm pretty sure those two instances cover almost all GA flights
I concur with Ryan,............. |:)\The thing is, if you don't support this bill, it may well be the last straw in which the FAA cannot recover ATC, and it cascades towards privatization. Welcome to navcan people where the fees are sometimes double or triple that which are purposed in this bill. Take the lesser of two evils. A small user fee, or the very real possibility that in the near future we may be presented with a privatized air traffic system.
I concur with Turbomallard... you won't find a friendly climate here for that Chris.
I'm not willing to accept user fees
I also concur with Pipergirls response ::unbelieveable::QuoteSo basically this should never apply to GA. Because of the following;
1) most GA fly VFR, therefore you never talk to ATC, so no surcharge
2) if your flight begins or ends at a non-controlled airport, or an airport that does not have a TRACON, no surcharge
I'm pretty sure those two instances cover almost all GA flights
Really!?!?
*Edit, I just went back and read the bill, and it 'appears' you're wrong TM.
Could not have said it better myself--Thanks quacker, that is right on---Remember the old axiom about "letting the camel get his nose in the tent" ............ ::banghead::
*Edit, I just went back and read the bill, and it 'appears' you're wrong TM.
It 'appears' to me that perhaps you did not read my post correctly.
Note that I stated that the $25 IFR fee for turbines would establish a precedent that would lead us down a bad path. I doubt I'll ever be fortunate enough to fly anything with a turbine, and if I could afford to fly something of that nature I would also be able to afford the $25 fee. The $25 is not the concern. The danger lies in the precedent of establishing user fees, which would bring about the very situation you describe in Canada... only the money would be going to the US government rather than a private company. Same difference. Furthermore... I doubt that charging $25 per turbine flight is going to fund the next gen system... or make enough of an impact to give you a bigger paycheck. The main function of such a fee would be to open the gates for more.
TM
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
