Air Traffic Controllers: Short Staffing Contributes to Another Fatal Crashby 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.
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http://blog.aflcio.org/2006/11/16/air-traffic-controllers-short-staffing-contributes-to-another-fatal-crash/