This is a crosspost from AFL-CIO Now.
As Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) investigators look into the causes behind the fatal Comair crash that killed 49 people in Kentucky over the weekend, one leading cause is clear: The FAA violated its own policies when it assigned only one air traffic controller to the Lexington control tower.
In the nation's worst airline disaster since 2001, all on board were killed except first officer James Polehinke, who is in critical condition.
The sole controller on duty at the time of the crash handled all planes taxiing on the airfield, including giving clearance routings to planes requesting departures; and also was responsible for monitoring the radar scope for aircraft approaching the airport and planes that had already departed. The controller on had cleared the Comair jet for takeoff on the proper runway, but instead the plane took off from a runway too short to allow it to become airborne, according to National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
While at first denying that two controllers were required, the FAA later changed its statement. Says FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown:
The FAA should have scheduled a second controller for the overnight shift or should have shifted radar responsibilities to Indianapolis Center, FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said.
James Hall, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, puts it this way:
If I were a family member, I would be as angry as I could be over a loss of life that was so preventable. Every safety device on the airport surface was blown through.
Ruth Marlin, NATCA executive vice president, said in a statement:
Controllers not only have to do their jobs without making mistakes; they have to maintain vigilance and try (to) prevent other people's mistakes from becoming accidents. If there aren't enough controllers to do it, we can't maintain the safety margin.
The FAA's short-staffing is no surprise to members of the Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA). Nor is it something new. NATCA has long warned the FAA about staffing problems in the nation's tower. In 2002, the union says that the FAA employed 15,606 controllers but now that number has shrunk to 14,305 while air traffic continues to grow.
In a letter to the editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer back in 2004, Don Chapman described the conditions at the Philadelphia International Airport:
Here in Philadelphia, we already are operating at beyond our capacity. The FAA-authorized staffing total for our tower is 109 controllers, but we only have 65 certified professional controllers on board. Eight of these controllers will be forced into mandatory retirement at age 56 in the next five years. An additional 36 will become eligible for retirement because they will have completed 25 years of service or will be 50 years old with at least 20 years of service.
Despite a shrinking controller workforce, controllers are maintaining impressive safety records. For instance, at Denver International Airport (DIA), air traffic controllers handled a record number of takeoffs and landings Aug 4. They moved 2,013 airplanes with a workforce that has been slashed by one-third since the new airport opened in 1995 and was handling just about 1,350 departures and arrivals a day.
Yet even as it is short-staffing air traffic control towers, the FAA has sought major cutbacks in air traffic controllers' wages.
On June 7, the U.S. House of Representatives failed to pass a bill that would have told the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to go back to the bargaining table with the nation's air traffic controllers.
As a result of a White House veto threat and the Bush administration's use of misinformation from two extreme-right groups, the bill, which won a large bipartisan majority (271-148), fell short of the two-thirds majority required by the House rules under which the bill was considered.
In April, despite NATCA's offer of more than $1.4 billion in pay and benefit cuts, the FAA cut off talks and declared an impasse. Under federal law, 60 days later the agency was allowed to impose the terms of its final offer.
On June 5, the FAA imposed a contract that cuts pay for current and future controllers by as much as 30 percent, reduces pensions and, according to some aviation experts, could prompt more than 4,000 of the current 14,000 controller workforce to retire, exacerbating an already critical controller shortage.
The bill (H.R. 5449), offered by Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-Ohio), would have required the FAA to lift the imposed contract and resume bargaining with the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA).