Air Traffic Controllers: Short Staffing Contributes to Another Fatal Crash

[Sapphire Blue]

Air Traffic Controllers: Short Staffing Contributes to Another Fatal Crash
by James Parks, Nov 16, 2006

Air traffic controllers have been warning that the contract unilaterally imposed by the Bush Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) over the Labor Day weekend contained new rules that pose real and potentially dangerous consequences for the safety of airline passengers and crews.

Now the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) has expressed concern that FAA cutbacks contributed to the crash last month of a twin-engine plane, on approach to the airport in Lawrenceville, Ill. Air controllers had voiced the same concern with respect to an earlier fatal crash this year in Indiana.

In the Lawrenceville accident, local controllers in nearby Terre Haute, Ind., should have been guiding the aircraft. But instead, the FAA shut down the Terre Haute approach control for the night, switching control to the Indianapolis Traffic Control Center to save money, according to NATCA.

(snip)

Indiana air traffic controllers believe this accident, and an accident earlier this year at the Bloomington, Ind., airport, which led to the deaths of five Indiana University graduate students, resulted from reduced quality of air traffic services available to the pilots due to the FAA’s decision to close the Terre Haute approach control at night.

They say the FAA’s short-sighted decisions also played a role in the fatal Comair crash that killed 49 people in Kentucky in August. Investigators found the FAA violated its own policies when it assigned only one air traffic controller to the Lexington control tower.

Continued @ http://blog.aflcio.org/2006/11/16/air-traffic-controllers-short-staffing-contributes-to-another-fatal-crash/

[Demit]

1. What a disgrace.

Just a note: your "new rules" link downloads a pdf. The story is at the "potentially dangerous" link, and it's worth reading:

"Under the imposed rules, controllers who do not feel they have gotten enough rest before a shift would be forced to work anyway. Controllers also can no longer take a break after two hours on the job, a longstanding practice that controllers say was a major way to fight fatigue."

What a disgrace that the FAA cut off contract talks. Hopefully the new House will pass a bill making them go back to the table.

[ninkasi]

2. I hope so

Controlling costs at the expense of someone's life is wrong. Unfortunately, we are living in a country obsessed by the "bottom line", and the human factor is discarded. I personally would rather pay a little bit more for a ticket than have my life jeopardized for a few dollars by having air traffic controllers too fatigued to be alert to possible dangers.

[aquart]

3. I don't suppose the planes that crash carry only Republicans?

Because I know they don't care if they kill us...but maybe if some rich contributors go down?

[no_hypocrisy]

4. * deserves part of the blame. Thank R.Regan for making it a mission

to break the back of the air controller union in the 1980s and consequently the rest of the union movement when he fired the controllers en masse for their "demands" and threatened to go on strike.

[MindPilot]

5. But air travel is safer than ever because none has more than 3oz

of hair gel. So they need as many controllers. See how that works?