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.

Laurie Krumwiede, the NATCA representative at the Terre Haute tower, says the FAA has significantly reduced the staffing level at Terre Haute:

A few years ago, we had 19 fully certified controllers and three trainees. Today, Terre Haute is staffed with only 13 fully certified controllers. As a result, FAA management said it couldn’t support a recent agency decision that requires it to have two controllers staff the midnight shift. Instead, in February, the FAA started turning over the approach control portion of the operation to Indy Center during the midnight hours, while one controller at Terre Haute tower worked the airport operations during these hours.

Dave O’Malley, NATCA facility representative at the Indianapolis tower, says:

The controllers at Indy Center are among the best and most dedicated in the world. However, we don’t have the radar accuracy or experience with local approach operations that the controllers at Terre Haute have. On top of that, center controllers don’t receive the kind of extensive training for approach operations that true approach controllers receive.

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.

NATCA Vice President Bryan Zilonis says more people could be killed unless the FAA changes its tune:

Unfortunately, given the FAA’s current philosophy of cutting costs by reducing controller staffing levels, consolidating services, and not making overtime available where staffing shortages exist, we are seeing the system become unsafe and we fear we will see more lives lost.

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