Air Traffic Controllers

[brien51]

Anyone found sleeping on this most important job and responsibility should summarily be fired. Once a few were fired, the rest would fall in line, stay awake, and do their job.

[california-jewel]

Man what is going on. What they not putting in their coffee to keep them awake, a little to close for comfort for some. Happening a bit too often, is it not. Something must be done.

[Rhenzanite]

I think many people would be shocked at what goes on behind the scenes in the aviation industry. People demand cheap flights and airlines/airports have to cut budgets accordingly. Unfortunately, since there are so many pilots willing to destroy their bodies and minds just to be able to log a few hours of flight time for barely any pay, stuff like this won't change any time soon. Aviation is a weird industry.

[lifelongMOgal]

A conspiracy to re-unionize via an appearance of poor performance? Apparently a controller allowed the plane the FLOTUS was on to get too close to an Air Force C-17 at Andrews AFB yesterday.

[Febtober]

Originally Posted by Iamrita

The state of air traffic control is ridiculous. Safety cannot be compromised in the interest of economy.

Actually the state of air traffic control is amazing. Tens of thousands of flights each and every day and the most anyone ever hears about are the rare ground collisions at airports. How many airplane crashes have occurred that you can directly cite air traffic control for? Sure they're there, but at this point it's an astronomical rarity.

A controller falling asleep, while unprofessional, is not really dangerous. Hundreds of towers around the country close every night and the airport goes uncontrolled, with pilots making position announcements on a Common Traffic Advisory Frequency, which everyone in the area monitors. This is how those airports with the sleeping controllers were treated.

Originally Posted by ditchdigger

It was not his girlfriend. It was somebody from airport operations, and the initial reason for the call was about the removal of a dead cat from a taxiway. That call should never have been the responsibility of a controller. It should have been made by someone in management.

I'm in airport ops and in the case of debris on a runway, we need to know about it immediately so we can get out there in retrieve it. Having the controller call his manager who would then call us is wasting time. Also, you'd still have the controller calling somebody either way...

Not to mention, in that case, the aircraft that the helicopter hit did not show up on the controller's screen until 7 seconds after the aircraft switched frequencies. There was literally nothing he could have done for them, talking on the phone or not.

Originally Posted by lifelongMOgal

A conspiracy to re-unionize via an appearance of poor performance? Apparently a controller allowed the plane the FLOTUS was on to get too close to an Air Force C-17 at Andrews AFB yesterday.

This happens literally hundreds of times a day. It's very common and all it means is that one plane flies a boring missed approach procedure and comes back to rejoin the pattern..

Oh but yes, a devious conspiracy to get something they already have


I really wish the media would get up in arms over crew rest minimums. You don't hear them broadcasting live from JFK about how a pilot only arrived at the hotel six hours before he was back sitting in the seat of a jet, starting the first of five legs for that day.

[Leisesturm]

Originally Posted by brien51

Anyone found sleeping on this most important job and responsibility should summarily be fired. Once a few were fired, the rest would fall in line, stay awake, and do their job.

That is in fact what is happening. And the remaining controllers (and pilots) are still falling asleep. So, when we get down to 1000 total controllers for the entire country, what then genius? When was the last time you ordered yourself to stay awake?

[7express]

I know it's an old topic, but I heard these ATC controllers can't do anything except keep on the headset, and listen for a communication.
Can't listen to music, can't read a magazine book, can't watch a little portable TV can't do nothing except look at a radar with nothing on it, or look out into pitch darkness. I'm not siding with them, but its no wonder these controllers at Reno, Cleveland, DCA, are falling asleep; the controllers have to be there all night from 12-6, yet get almost 0 traffic because the last scheduled departure is 10:00 PM, and the last scheduled arrival is at 1:00 AM, meaning from 1-5 there is NOTHING coming or going, yet these controllers can't do anything except look at a blank radar.

[NinaN]

That is correct. And that's often part of the "swing, day, mid" shift combo where they work until 9:30pm, come home and sleep 6 hours, get up at 4:30 in the morning for a shift that goes from 5:30-1:30, come home and sleep 3-4 hours (because YOU try to sleep 8 hours at 3 in the afternoon) and go back at work at 10:00 for an overnight shift, alone, with few flights, in a dark room, with no music, book, TV, or anything else to do. Staring at an empty radar screen.

These guys aren't being lazy, they are being human.

[7express]

Speaking of which for both the ATC controllers and the pilots, they need a longer then 8 hour rest, or at the very least start the clock when they pull into their driveway. For some of these pilots that fly into DEN, JFK, NRT or airports far away from the main city, they may be well into their rest period by the time they go through the checklist, get bags, and get transportation. Either that or give them at least a magazine/newspaper. I listen to JFK at 1:00 AM from time to time on liveatc and there is hardly anything going on there between 1 and 4, would it really be that much of an inconvience for those poor guys to read the Post or Daily News or something?? At least reading something you stay awake!

[b_johnsto1]

I say fire their asses. If I was an ATC I would be on the job all the time.