Air Traffic Controllers Violate Federal Laws... Or thats what Fox News thinks...

[undatc]

As I was flipping channels this morning Fox News had splashed across this screen, "Air Traffic Controller Violate Federal Laws".  Which is a blatant LIE!  What they are referring to is report released today by USA Today & the Transportation inspector General.  Here is the report and a link: http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2007-03-20-air-traffic-shifts_N.htm?csp=34

Report: Air-traffic shifts understaffed
By Alan Levin, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Air-traffic control towers at small and medium airports have been routinely understaffed with only one person on a shift, a violation of federal aviation rules, a government investigator said Tuesday.

The practice came to light last year after one air-traffic controller was on duty in Lexington, Ky., when Comair Flight 5191 taxied to a closed runway and tried to take off before dawn on Aug. 27. The runway was too short, and the jet crashed into trees and burst into flames, killing 49 of the 50 people aboard.

The Department of Transportation's inspector general estimated that 2,500 shifts at air-traffic facilities similar to Lexington's were staffed by a single controller on overnight shifts during a one-year span. That's 11% of all overnight shifts at those facilities, the report said.

"What this report makes clear is that the FAA must do a better job of implementing its policies," said Rep. Jerry Costello, D-Ill., chairman of the House aviation subcommittee. Costello and Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., chairman of the transportation committee, sought the report.

Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Laura Brown said the agency has stopped understaffing the towers and is following the inspector general's recommendations.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Federal Aviation Administration | Lexington

In August 2005, the FAA ordered its facilities at airports that operate 24 hours a day to maintain at least two controllers at all times, one to oversee landings and takeoffs and another to monitor flights around the airport.

The rule was prompted by a controller working alone at Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina who guided one plane into the path of another that had just taken off. The incident did not result in a crash.

Air-traffic tapes showed the controller in the Lexington crash sent the jet to the correct runway, but the controller told investigators that he turned away to perform paperwork and did not see the takeoff.

The cause of the crash has not been determined by the National Transportation Safety Board, but the focus has been on the pilots' actions.

Inspector General Calvin Scovel found that the FAA failed to communicate its new staffing policy in writing. The review examined 20 weeks of staffing data at 15 of the 62 facilities covered by the FAA rule. It found that 11% of shifts had been staffed by only one controller.

Compliance with the rule got steadily better during the one-year period it was in effect before the Lexington crash, the report said.

On the day of the accident, Lexington and facilities in Duluth, Minn., and Fargo, N.D., were improperly staffed with one controller.

The report coincides with a tense period between controllers and the FAA. The agency last year imposed wage concessions on controllers.

It has nothing to do with controllers what so ever! We (they) have been virtually screaming at the FAA for years about staffing at airports.  NATCA actually several years ago gave an internal report to the FAA about airports that desperately needed controllers, and the FAA ignored it.  It goes back to the philosophy that the FAA wont change until it's in their best financial interest, not your flying safety.  The fact is virtually every ATC facility in this country is understaffed, some so bad, that controllers are working double shifts everyday, and are being called back on their weekends too.

Following the comair crash the FAA was all up in arms saying that they would no longer staff one controller on night shifts, however many months later, they still are, and now controllers are catching flack for the FAA's ineptitude.  I'll get off my soap box now, but thought you all should know.  Go to www.fairfaa.org and tell your congressmen/women what you think.  Make your voice heard.

[Baradium]

I notice that the headline says "laws" and the article says "rules."  Can be a big difference!


For needing controllers so bad, the FAA sure isn't willing to train new ones at any speed.

[undatc]

I notice that the headline says "laws" and the article says "rules."  Can be a big difference!


For needing controllers so bad, the FAA sure isn't willing to train new ones at any speed.

Yea, the USA today article is correct, but Fox News said laws in their byline.

I'll give them credit for trying, but you have to have controllers to train the new ones, and if they are training, they aren't working traffic.  Catch 22 there.  In addition the academy in OKC can only pump out about 150 new controllers every 15 weeks right now, so there is another problem.  "They" are talking about putting CTI grads right into tower, and some radar positions and skipping OKC all together.

[Gulfstream Driver]

Did you send an e-mail to Fox News? 

Personally, their reporting practices are so blatantly dishonest, I can't stand to watch them.  Fearmongers, one and all.

[Baradium]

Did you send an e-mail to Fox News? 

Personally, their reporting practices are so blatantly dishonest, I can't stand to watch them.  Fearmongers, one and all.

You left out CNN,  MSNBC and any of the other news outlets. 

I think Fox News does *try* it's just areas like that they don't have people involved with the industry and make mistakes.

[undatc]

Did you send an e-mail to Fox News? 

Personally, their reporting practices are so blatantly dishonest, I can't stand to watch them.  Fearmongers, one and all.

An email to a conglomerate that prides itself in reporting lies, and contorting the truth to sell more advertising, is about as pointless as trying to stop an glacier with a hair dryer.

CNN and others do a lot better job, but still aren't the best.  I turn to BBC usually if i want the full truth.

[Baradium]

Did you send an e-mail to Fox News? 

Personally, their reporting practices are so blatantly dishonest, I can't stand to watch them.  Fearmongers, one and all.

An email to a conglomerate that prides itself in reporting lies, and contorting the truth to sell more advertising, is about as pointless as trying to stop an glacier with a hair dryer.

CNN and others do a lot better job, but still aren't the best.  I turn to BBC usually if i want the full truth.

I've found a lot more inconsistancies centered around what they want to be the truth in CNN than Fox News.   

[undatc]

Got my monthly NATCA news letter today and this was inside: http://www.natca.org/newsletter/032307IGStaffing.msp

The following is NATCA’s response to the IG review:

“The IG’s report very clearly confirms that it took a disaster for the FAA to get around to making sure its facilities were complying with its own order on proper staffing. The urgency with which the Agency acted after the crash to ensure proper midnight shift staffing should have been done immediately after the Raleigh-Durham incident in 2005. That was the time to act. Not after people lost their lives. That’s too late.

“This is why NATCA is so firmly committed to speaking out against the terribly unsafe staffing levels in place today at facilities all over the country, especially considering the FAA has just announced a new controller workforce plan that is three years too late. Controllers are leaving at the rate of three per day. The Agency has thrown out longstanding safe staffing levels at every facility and replaced them with a manufactured “range” of budget-based staffing levels that slashes between nine and 26 percent of the amount of controllers needed to properly staff towers and radar facilities.

“This IG report should be a wakeup call to the Agency to re-evaluate its new staffing plan and increase its new staffing standards, not cut them down to grossly negligent levels.

“It was also disturbing to read that the IG found that 11.1 percent of the total midnight shifts it reviewed were staffed with only one controller before the Comair crash. That meant the Agency could only guarantee the safety of the system on these shifts 89 percent of the time. In our profession, an 89 percent proficiency rate not only gets you fired, it unnecessarily puts safety at risk.”

[airtac]

WOW, "an 89 percent proficiency rating gets you fired"---- in aviation, (the folks in the pointed end), an 89 percent proficiency can get you KILLED----still a lot of difference between guidance and driving.

[TheSoccerMom]

How true. 

 

[AirtransRecon]

I really do feel for the controller who was on duty when the jet went down in Lexington. After reviewing alot of that case, and talking to a few controllers I still can't agree that the controller was somehow at fault yet it's an argument that seems to keep coming up against them.

Stop watching Faux News, it will cause you to hurt yourself and others around you.

KW

[undatc]

I really do feel for the controller who was on duty when the jet went down in Lexington. After reviewing alot of that case, and talking to a few controllers I still can't agree that the controller was somehow at fault yet it's an argument that seems to keep coming up against them.

Stop watching Faux News, it will cause you to hurt yourself and others around you.

KW

I'm not familar with the Lexington accident.  Can you elaborate?

**EDIT** On second thought, was that the comair crash?  I never really paid attention to where it was other than NC.

And I'm kinda stuck with Faux News, going to college in North Dakota, this is an extremely RED state(they still have blue laws!)

[Baradium]

I really do feel for the controller who was on duty when the jet went down in Lexington. After reviewing alot of that case, and talking to a few controllers I still can't agree that the controller was somehow at fault yet it's an argument that seems to keep coming up against them.

Stop watching Faux News, it will cause you to hurt yourself and others around you.

KW

I'm not familar with the Lexington accident.  Can you elaborate?

**EDIT** On second thought, was that the comair crash?  I never really paid attention to where it was other than NC.

And I'm kinda stuck with Faux News, going to college in North Dakota, this is an extremely RED state(they still have blue laws!)

Alright guys,  if you are going to rip Fox News so much, how about giving some examples about how they are any worse than any other news station?   

I think Fox News gets stuff wrong, but I believe they do try for the most part.   More than I can say about what I see from CNN.

[undatc]

Alright guys,  if you are going to rip Fox News so much, how about giving some examples about how they are any worse than any other news station?   

I think Fox News gets stuff wrong, but I believe they do try for the most part.   More than I can say about what I see from CNN.

They sensationalize just about everything, they lie about stories (this one for example), only report one side of an issue, when they have 'equal' debates they bring on both sides but only let one side talk and continually cut the other side off.  Not to mention they retain anchormen that are unethical, what happened to the good old days when people that reported the news tried to tell the truth and do whats right and not make a buck off it?  Ok I'm to young to remember those days, but to bad they went.

[Baradium]

Alright guys,  if you are going to rip Fox News so much, how about giving some examples about how they are any worse than any other news station?   

I think Fox News gets stuff wrong, but I believe they do try for the most part.   More than I can say about what I see from CNN.

They sensationalize just about everything, they lie about stories (this one for example), only report one side of an issue, when they have 'equal' debates they bring on both sides but only let one side talk and continually cut the other side off.  Not to mention they retain anchormen that are unethical, what happened to the good old days when people that reported the news tried to tell the truth and do whats right and not make a buck off it?  Ok I'm to young to remember those days, but to bad they went.

I said *worse* then the other news stations... now "eeringly similiar."    I've seen CNN doing the same thing (although I still think they do it more often and to more of an extreme).


BTW, this isn't so much "lying about stories" as it is being written by a reporter who doesn't know enough about aviation.  And it happens all the time with a lot of newspapers and tv stations.   Ignorance isn't a good excuse, but every other news station makes the same mistake.  And getting something wrong and lying are really two different things.   Lying takes intent, otherwise you could say I lie everytime I make a mistake (and visa versa).


As far as unethical anchormen... seems like most of the scandels recently have been with other stations as well.   Let's not use a double standard here.     


Unfortunately you have to wade through all the news these days and try to figure out what's true and what's not.     

Sorry, but confusing FAA procedures / orders with law doesn't rank up there on "intentional misrepresentation" to me... especially since they used the correct wording in the article.   I know, it still shouldn't be that way, but this is a system wide problem.


Anyway, I think it's right to be annoyed at Fox News for printing that, but I also think it's wrong to single them out as the only one that does it.