FAA, Where are You? Clearly Air Traffic Control is Oxymoron

March 24th, 2011. By Hunter West

Now, wouldn’t that make a great reality TV series? Modeled after ‘Car 54 Where Are You,’ only in this scenario the two cops are replaced by two bungling air traffic controllers who don’t bother to answer when a pilot coming in for a landing, radios the approach tower at a major airport and gets no response.

Wait a minute—that would be incorrect. Because apparently there need be only one air traffic controller on duty…late at night…when things are quiet and it’s easy to nod off.

We don’t know if that was the case in the wee hours of yesterday morning when not one, but TWO incoming flights had to make do with input from regional towers and land at Ronald Reagan National Airport using unmanned airport protocol.

But this is bloody serious. Utter negligence. A lawsuit in the making, and a juicy one at that, had anything more serious happened.

According to a report yesterday in The New York Times and a compelling treatment on NBC‘s ‘Today’ this morning, an American Airlines Boeing 737 from Dallas approached the airport around midnight Wednesday but aborted its landing and circled the airport after pilots got no response from the tower. About 15 minutes later, a United Airlines Airbus 320 from Chicago also tried unsuccessfully to establish contact with the tower.

The controller in the tower at Reagan apparently re-appeared and all was well after that. The ‘Today’ show reported this morning that the controller who was on duty has an unblemished record (ps, the controller’s since been suspended, thereby blemishing that unblemished record).

Fine and dandy. But hey, FAA, why is it okay to have just one person in the tower? Would it not, presumably, make more sense for a busy airport literally a stone’s throw from the Pentagon to have two controllers on duty at all times?

What if the lone occupant falls asleep?

What if the lone occupant has a sudden onset of diarrhea and has to go to the bathroom? For that matter, when there is but a single air traffic controller on duty, what happens for even routine bathroom breaks?

Smoke breaks? Are they allowed to smoke in the tower?

What happens if there is a health emergency? A heart attack? 

For heaven’s sake, people… 

We can’t assume anything at this point. Perhaps there were supposed to be two, but one person called in sick and they couldn’t find a replacement. Perhaps the controller on duty did take ill, or perhaps did fall asleep. Matt Lauer, on the ‘Today’ show this morning, asked if there were cameras in the room that could alert security to a sleeping employee… 

Perhaps a lower-level, and therefore less-expensive staffer, such as an administrative assistant, could be assigned just to keep the air traffic controller company? Someone to mind the store during a bathroom, or smoke break perhaps? Someone who can alert the higher-ups in the event of a health emergency, such as if an older controller suddenly keels over from a heart attack. 

An unsuspected embolism can fell even young people. 

And even if an assistant were present, Murphy’s Law dictates that an emergency will happen when you are least prepared. An assistant on site can alert administration of an emergency in order to dispatch another controller to the scene. Over the interim, however, that tower is rudderless… 

It’s hard to gauge how much play this will get in the ensuing days. But safe to say, it’s a huge issue—one that the Department of Homeland Security will most assuredly weigh in on. For the time being the US Transportation Secretary, Ray LaHood, is reported in The New York Times yesterday as having instructed the FAA to study staffing levels at other airports and to ensure that two air traffic controllers are on duty during the midnight shift at Reagan. 

Let’s go one better. Let’s make it a requirement to make sure that there are two air traffic controllers on active duty in the control towers of all major airports at all times, 24/7. 

The two planes that landed safely in the wee hours of yesterday morning followed protocol and made it to the tarmac, in spite of no contact from the tower. But they were routine flights, coming in for a landing in good weather with properly functioning planes. 

What would have happened if it were an emergency situation that required immediate, and expert input from the tower? 

Somebody get this thing fixed. The FAA needs to know that Reagan dodged a huge bullet yesterday. 

Next time they may not be so lucky. And any lawsuits stemming from an impending disaster, caused or at least compromised by having inadequate staffing at the tower, will be huge…

Tags: Air Traffic Control, FAA, Ronald Reagan Airport

This was posted on Thursday, March 24th, 2011 at 3:54 pm and is filed under Airlines, Emerging Issues . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.