The following article originally appeared in July, with no connection to the recent disaster, which is still being investigated. But it seems the air traffic controller was dealing with helicopters and instructing planes, doing tasks usually meant for two. From Amuse on X:
For decades, the FAA utilized the Collegiate Training Initiative (CTI) program, an elite pipeline producing highly trained candidates with extensive coursework and aptitude testing. The selection process was rigorous, with applicants required to pass the Air Traffic Selection and Training (AT-SAT) exam—a test scientifically designed to measure an individual’s ability to excel in high-pressure, precision-demanding environments.
In 2014, however, the FAA upended this system. The AT-SAT was sidelined, and a biographical questionnaire replaced it. The goal was explicit: to increase demographic representation at the expense of skill. Over 3,000 highly qualified CTI graduates, many of whom had already demonstrated superior aptitude, were summarily dismissed in favor of candidates who better aligned with racial and gender quotas. It was an affront to meritocracy, and in a job where a momentary lapse could mean catastrophe, the implications were dire.
Since these changes, reports of runway incursions, aborted takeoffs, and near-midair collisions have risen at an alarming rate. The year 2024 saw a record-breaking 1,100 runway near-miss incidents, many attributed to controller errors. A few of the most harrowing examples include:
October 2024: A Delta Air Lines Airbus A350 collided with an Endeavor Air CRJ-900 at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, resulting in millions in damages and a full-scale NTSB investigation.
September 2024: An Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 was forced to abort takeoff in Nashville to avoid colliding with a Southwest 737 that was mistakenly cleared to cross the active runway.
December 2024: A Delta jet at LAX nearly struck a private aircraft due to a controller’s miscommunication, narrowly avoiding a tragic disaster.
These incidents are not just statistical outliers. They represent a troubling trend: a growing cohort of underqualified controllers, fast-tracked into roles they are ill-equipped to handle, is increasingly making costly, dangerous errors. (Read more.)
From Fox News:
A New York Times report saying the air control tower at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport has been understaffed for years came amid a lawsuit claiming the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) discriminated against air traffic controller applicants based on their race.
The Times report said the tower at the airport was nearly a third below targeted staff levels, with 19 fully certified controllers as of September 2023, citing the most recent Air Traffic Controller Workforce Plan, an annual report to Congress that contains target and actual staffing levels.
The targets set by the F.A.A. and the controllers union call for 30.
The lawsuit represents nearly 1,000 individuals who went to school to become air traffic controllers . They passed the normal test to obtain the position right before the Obama administration said the class was too white and threw out the tests with the applicants, the suit alleges.
Former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, who serves as co-counsel for Mountain States Legal Foundation, based in Colorado, is leading efforts for a lawsuit.
"When you travel and have a delay, it’s because there aren’t enough of these people," Laxalt told the Wall Street Journal last year. "When you see these near incidents in air traffic control, it’s because there aren’t enough people. There are only 14,000 air traffic controllers. A thousand were scrapped a decade ago, and the bottom line is they’ve never made up losing all of this pipeline." (Read more.)
From Coffee and Covid:
In the background of these instantaneous errors lies a fractured FAA having a slow-motion existential crisis. A class-action lawsuit continues grinding away in discovery, exposing the agency’s tragic 2014 decision to scrap merit-based testing when hiring air traffic controllers. Instead the FAA relied on a “biographical statement” that scored, you guessed it, totally irrelevant factors like skin color and ethnic background.
Reams of headlines over the last couple years have reported growing numbers of close calls at airports and an expanding crisis over staffing levels — a manpower crisis that festered even while the agency essentially refused to hire better-qualified white applicants, holding those jobs open for less-qualified minority applicants.
As bad as that sounds, it gets worse. The FAA’s critical staffing issues started —I am not making this up— with its mass layoffs in 2021 of controllers who refused to take the jabs. The agency has never recovered from that horrible mistake. It remains currently 3,000 controllers under normal staffing levels.
Thus, it is unsurprising that in its last survey in 2023, Pete Buttigieg’s DOT reported that 77% of critical air traffic control facilities were understaffed. The truth is probably closer to all of them.
In the same year, the New York Times reported that near-misses on airport runways (“incursions”) had climbed to an all-time high, and that overworked, burnt-out air traffic controllers were falling asleep on the job and getting drunk at work. To put a number on it, the FAA self-reported 1,750 runway incursions for each of the past three years. By comparison, in 2014, the year the FAA changed its testing standards, the agency reported only 1,278 incursions....
✈️ Yesterday evening, President Trump signed a brand-new executive order titled, “Immediate Assessment of Aviation Safety.” The brief order identified some of the same problems I mentioned earlier and ordered the terrific new Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy and the incoming FAA Administrator to review all Biden-era decisions and orders — and to promptly fire anyone below minimum, merit-based standards. (Read more.)
Meanwhile, at the Whitehouse...From The Vigilant Fox:
ShareWhite House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt (27) just delivered her second press briefing. After winning over MAGA with her impressive debut, she didn’t disappoint—giving the media yet another dose of reality.
The press briefing started out with Leavitt announcing that, yes, President Trump will be imposing big tariffs, starting tomorrow, for “the illegal fentanyl that they have sourced and allowed to distribute into our country, which has killed tens of millions of Americans.”
This includes:
• 25% tariffs on Mexico
• 25% tariffs on Canada
• 10% tariffs on China
“These are promises made and promises kept by the president,” Leavitt said.
No comments:
Post a Comment