GovernmentExecutive.com

Return to Article: Crash probe raises issue of air traffic controller staffing

• 29803
  

  It's amazing how many comments point fingers instead of trying to suggest solutions. Anyone who works in the airline industry knows the hours are long, pay is not the best and safety isn't always put first. Our ATC system needs serious upgrades and better staffing. In this crash, the pilots being unfamiliar should have asked for a progressive taxi. The controller can't be expected to babysit when short staffed. Listen to the audio (you can find it posted online) of the radio conversations before the crash...then you decide who all was to blame. I say that the pilots should have asked for help....any controller would have gladly given it.

  Kevin Obek Posted August 1, 2007 10:25 AM
• 29705
  

  I'm sorry, Mr. Wicker, but you're way out of touch. I'm a GS13 also, but I'm also a pilot, and I sincerely appreciate the work that America's air traffic controllers do day after day.

  However, in this case, it seems that the reason given that the controller in Lexington was not minding the store when the Comair flight departed was that he was engaged in an "administrative task". What administrative task could he have been engaged in that was more important than monitoring a departing flight? Flight Safety is his primary reason for being there, and he apparently abrogated that responsibility to tend to a mundane administrative task.

  I'm sorry, but I think in this case the controller bears a significant portion of the blame for this accident.

  Walt McKinney Posted July 31, 2007 7:48 AM
• 29685
  

  To GS13 I'm not impressed with your numerical ranking. Its obvious to anyone that knows the air traffic world that you don't have an understanding of its inner workings. To your comments, thank you very much for the compliment, for we where the way that was found for the system to continue and thrive so the country could retain its free, capitalistic and Democratic principles. The Government hired the very people who you and this administration choose to bash and condemn for doing nothing less than allowing the American people to board thousands of flights each day and not once at anytime during their flights ask did that Air Traffic Controller do his job? Nope, they just thank the flight attendant and the pilot for the safe flight when getting off the airplane. I guess GS13 you make me puke. Thank you to all of my fellow Controllers for being the forgotten and unknown professional voices of safety first and family last.

  Real Controller Posted July 30, 2007 8:33 PM
• 29680
  

  To Mr. GS13: What do you do for a living? Chances are it doesn't involve anything more dangerous than reports, meetings, briefings, blah, blah, blah. The next time you and your family take a plane ride, take just a moment to respect the overworked men and women who protect your precious lives! But you won't, because your post indicates a supercilious attitude (look it up), and you are the type of federal manager who isn't needed today. Sorry for the "ad hominem" post, but you're way out of line.

  US Customs Senior Inspector (Retired) Posted July 30, 2007 6:00 PM
• 29673
  

  Hey GS-13, You are welcome to try and become a controller anytime. Please know that you will take a signifigant pay cut while in traning (which will take years), probably work the next 10-15 Xmas's, New Years and every other holiday that does not fall on your RDO's , miss most of your childrens ball games, dance classes or whatever other activity they are in and be ready to work in a hostile work environment condoned by the FAA. Oh, and if you don't make it as a controller then maybe, just maybe they will let you go back to your GS-13 job. Come on, what is holding you back ? The FAA is hiring anybody and everybody right now.

  Tom Rudy Posted July 30, 2007 5:03 PM
• 29672
  

  Ye Bearer of Sour Grapes, who calls himself "GS-13", but hides in anonymity -

  What's your point, other than controller-bashing? Should only little, apparently underpaid-persons like yourself, be the ones to express their disgust with the way things are being run?

  Tell us what it's like for you: Who are you? What is your job? Is your job stressful? Do people die if you make a mistake? Do you do shift-work for 25 years? Do you work holidays? Do you work quick-turns? Do you miss summer vacations with your family year after year? Have you or any of your co-workers in the last 3 years, been fired for unjustifiable reasons? Mine have. Have you ever been threatened or intimidated at work by a manager? Is your boss piling on more and more work, but making you do it with less help?

  Do you have a clue why this year and last, hundreds of controllers are retiring or quitting as fast as they can (and will continue to do so)? If not, then you don't understand, and you never will.

  Mark Trent Posted July 30, 2007 4:58 PM
• 29669
  

  Hey Mr. Wicker, posting your comment at 12:38 AM, can't sleep or were you on your "scheduled break" in the tower. And how much do you make a year? $120K, $140K how about $160K? That is as much or more than a Senior Executive Service Official, and I bet he or she doesn't get a "break". TrainRider: I'm tired of listening to and reading the "wining and rhetoric" that spews from the lips of NATCA and its members, you are already the highest paid members of the government work force, just stop threatening, and go ahead and retire. God knows some of you have "retired" already. A boss once told me, if you're wasting that much time writing about it, your brain is already there, and not on your JOB. In closing, Mr. Reagan might not have had it completely right, but the American People found a way, and airplanes kept flying. If you have it as bad as you say you do and you can retire, leave, because you are a detrimental influence to those around you.

  GS13 Posted July 30, 2007 4:05 PM
• 29549
  

  Cut FEMA, lives are endangered, people die. Cut FDA, lives are endangered, people die. Cut the military, soldiers lives are endangered, soldiers die.

  Cut the FAA, freeze the pay of veterans eligible to retire, tell them they're at their high-three with no chance of ever seeing another raise, people die.

  You get what you pay for.

  R. Doug Wicker Posted July 28, 2007 12:38 AM
• 29540
  

  I am eligable to retire in 17 months, my pay has been frozen , there is no possibility to transfer without taking a forty thousand per year pay cut. We have people in charge that have one to two years experience in supervisory positions who eventually become operations managers and them facility managers. The system is falling apart, there is no accountability in management and we the controllers are getting old and tired. Look at Lexington, the controller had two hours sleep in 24 hours. We work these schedules year after year and now controllers are working six day weeks. Too much is too much, I love being a controller but I am making the neccesary arrangements to leave the FAA and go do something else.

  TrainRider Posted July 27, 2007 8:49 PM
• 29527
  

  This is just the tip of the iceberg. The entire ATC system is on the verge of totally collapsing because of mass retirements by veteran Air Traffic Controllers like myself. The FAA has turned the working environment in to nothing but harrasment and intimidation. Why stay in a job for less pay, more hours (because of the lack of staffing)and more airplanes. ? This is a recipe for disaster. Delays are already at an all time high. There will be another accident. It is just a matter of time. I am sure Congress and the flying public will then ask what happened and why.

  Tom Rudy Posted July 27, 2007 5:10 PM