BALTIMORE – Air site visitors management staffing shortages are in charge for harmful shut calls at airports nationwide, a brand new report exhibits.
WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren combed by means of a federal database and didn’t discover any current complaints involving BWI Marshall.
Nonetheless, the air site visitors management scarcity is a major problem nationwide, with necessary additional time required in an already worrying job.
Rising concern over the security of air journey following a greater than 40 % rise in shut calls from 23 to 16 over the previous 12 months, and simply 11 a decade in the past.
A damming new New York Occasions report calls air site visitors controller shortages harmful.
“It is a very troublesome job, and this is the opposite downside, while you obtained staffing points that now we have now, then there’s the idea of additional time,” stated Peter Greenberg, CBS Information Journey editor. “You do not need any air site visitors controller working additional time. You would not need your pilot to work additional time. However, they’re doing it.”
WJZ reported on a near-miss at BWI Marshall final January the place an ambulance got here inside half of a soccer area of colliding with a Southwest Airways airplane. However, that was as a result of a medic misheard instructions.
“Southwest 471 switching over. What was the difficulty there with the ambulance?” the pilot requested air site visitors management.
“We really advised them to carry brief. We’ll examine that,” air site visitors management responded.
One month later, in Boston, a Jet Blue pilot virtually hit a small airplane in its path. A photograph exhibits the shut name from the cockpit.
And that very same month, in Austin, Texas, a FedEx cargo airplane practically collided with a packed Southwest jet.
“It solely takes one missed warning to turn out to be a tragedy, one missed warning to destroy public confidence in a system that has been constructed over many years,” stated Jennifer Homendy, the Nationwide Transportation Security Board chair. “These incidents should function a wake-up name earlier than one thing extra catastrophic happens. Our security system is displaying clear indicators of pressure that we can not ignore.”
At a congressional listening to final month, the pinnacle of The Nationwide Air Site visitors Controllers Affiliation warned efforts to extend workers are falling brief with longer workweeks and necessary additional time the norm.
“A number of of our services require six-day workweeks and 10-hour days each single week,” stated Wealthy Santa, President of the Nationwide Air Site visitors Controller Affiliation. “Air site visitors management is already a extremely worrying place. Working 200 hours per thirty days layers on vital fatigue.”
Our evaluation of a federal database exhibits no current complaints at BWI Marshall.
“When it’s a must to work lengthy, lengthy hours past what you usually do, you get fatigued, you make errors, however we have not seen that right here,” stated Joe Handelman, an aviation fanatic who typically takes photographs of the planes at BWI.
Handelman stated that regardless of the shortages, he nonetheless feels protected when he flies.
“I’d not hesitate to get on an airplane and fly anyplace within the U.S.,” Handelman stated.
The NTSB chair stated that whereas now we have the most secure skies on this planet, only one collision, one incident would undermine your entire system.
About 1,400 air site visitors controllers are set to depart their jobs this fiscal 12 months.
