(http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa200/DefiantSix/WashingtonNational.jpg)
Air Traffic Controller Asleep on Duty at Reagan National, NTSB Says (http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/air-traffic-controller-staffing-reviewed-planes-land-dc/story?id=13210625)
FAA Orders Control Tower Staffing Review, Suspends AWOL Controller
By MATT HOSFORD, JIM SCIUTTO and BRADLEY BLACKBURN
March 24, 2011
An air traffic controller at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport fell asleep on duty early Wednesday morning, leaving the control tower silent and forcing pilots of two commercial planes to land on their own, the National Transportation Safety Board said today.
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The NTSB report, which does not name the controller, said he had been working his fourth consecutive overnight shift, which runs from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., and that "human fatigue issues are one of the areas being investigated."
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Pilots of an American Airlines and United Airlines plane each said they had been in contact with regional air traffic controllers before being handed off to the Reagan National tower for approach and landing.
But as the planes radioed their requests to land in the nation's capital early Wednesday morning, all they heard was silence.
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While Reagan National is staffed with multiple air traffic controllers during the day, the overnight shift is managed by just one controller because there are no departures overnight and few arrivals.
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The FAA administrator quoted in the article says the usual administration doublespeak about how "the system worked" in spite of the system being asleep at the switch. :whatever:
I call it even money whether the air traffic controller is out on his backside for this. He is most likely a union rat, after all.
The scape goat has officially been sacrificed:
Air Traffic Chief Resigns Amid Rash of Sleeping Controllers (http://www.theblaze.com/stories/air-traffic-chief-resigns-amid-rash-of-sleeping-controllers/)
Posted on April 14, 2011 at 11:36am by Jonathon M. Seidl
WASHINGTON (The Blaze/AP) — The head of the Federal Aviation Administration says the agency‘s top official overseeing the nation’s air traffic system has resigned following disclosures of controllers falling asleep on the job.
FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt said in a statement Thursday that Hank Krakowski, the head of the agency’s Air Traffic Organization, has submitted his resignation. FAA’s chief counsel, David Grizzle, will temporarily take over Krakowski’s duties while the agency searches for a replacement.
Babbitt said he is conducting a “top to bottom†review of the FAA’s entire air traffic system. He said recent disclosures of “unprofessional conduct on the part of a few individuals†have rightly caused the traveling public to question the system.
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It wasn't Mr. Krakowski who set the staffing tables for ATC towers, and he wasn't the one who was found snoring in a puddle of his own drool when he should have been landing airplanes. This lack of accountability on the part of the air traffic controllers who actually screwed the pooch is disgusting to me.