An exclusive report by the New York Post claims that on Monday evening between 18:30 to 21:30, flights out of Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) were handled by just one air traffic controller and a trainee. The report quotes a New York-based controller describing the situation as “pure insanity.” It also noted that an FAA spokesperson said that there were at least three controllers scheduled for each hour on Monday night but did not clarify how many of them were fully certified personnel.
The New York Times reported something similar, adding that four people familiar with the situation said that the number of fully certified controllers on duty to manage Newark’s air traffic was sometimes one or two. These figures are shocking because the target number of controllers for Newark to manage traffic in those hours is around 14-15.
What if he needs to take a dump?
Was he not wearing socks?
Not after the first hour or so.
Here’s a fantastic case for a union. There simply MUST be a minimum number of personnel looking after any given airspace for it to be considered safe, or the whole area gets shut down. It really is pure insanity, and no single person should be responsible for all flights at an airport. If something bad had happened who would get blamed? Who would live the rest of their life knowing they had been taken advantage of and put in a position where over a hundred lives were lost? It’s simply unacceptable that one person should bear that responsibility.
If something bad had happened who would get blamed?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Überlingen_mid-air_collision
“Devastated by the death of his wife and two children aboard flight 2937, Vitaly Kaloyev, a Russian architect, held Peter Nielsen personally responsible for their deaths. He tracked down and stabbed Nielsen to death, in the presence of Nielsen’s wife and three children, at his home in Kloten, near Zürich, on 24 February 2004. The Swiss police arrested Kaloyev at a local motel shortly afterward, and in 2005, he was sentenced to eight years for manslaughter. However, his sentence was later reduced after a Swiss judge ruled that he had acted with diminished responsibility.”
Don’t read that article any further. It only gets worse.
By his logic, Nielsen’s kids should now hunt him and kill him for killing their father.
Oh they had one. In 1981 they called a strike, and Reagan fired the 11 000 ATC who were on strike.
That is one of the reasons why labor protection are virtually inexistent in the US, as it’s illegal for federal employees to strike. Wild…
The weird thing for me here is why does the president have power over the employment of random government employees. I’m used to employment having legal protections so that prople can’t be fired just because.
The President is the head of the executive branch. i.e the Chief Executive. i.e. CEO.
Not defending this, just an explanation. Usually it works ok, but not when we elect Republicans as we’ve seen again and again.
Haven’t you ever heard of sMaLL gOvErNmEnT??
The US doesn’t care about their labor force.
because we’re a family company!!
Every generation of Americans decide they want their President to be a bit more like the king that they rebelled from.
This is what pisses me off the most they’re slow walking back to King George III like nothing happened.
They do have a union
They should have walked out.
Idk about this one, there were many lives at risk.
Announce shutting down the airspace and divert aircrafts to other airports, then leave.
Yup
Sounds like he’s in a very strong bargaining position at least
Move fast and break things: air traffic controller trainee edition
There needs to be a nationwide, unionized air traffic controller “consultant” business formed for when the shit hits the fan. Pay these people what they deserve to fix the disasters that will be caused by their ill treatment.
You forget the last time ATCs tried to stand up for themselves, Regan fired the entire industry and made the air force pick up the pieces until replacements could be trained. They should be considered as invalueble to society as doctors, but just like teachers, their industry is turbo fucked by their own managment.
You forget the last time ATCs tried to stand up for themselves, Regan fired the entire industry…
Yeah but Reagan is dead this time!
I’ll drink to that
What they dont talk about much though is that many of those same atcs that got fired got rehired. Its such a specialized job and so few are able to do it that they really dont have a choice.
Did we make America great yet?
Are there no politicians or billionaires in New Jersey that fly? Cuz this affects them too. Fix it assholes.
That’s what Taterboro (TEB) is for.
Only private jets can land there due to its runway weight limit, it’s the oldest still operating airport in the NYC area, hell Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart flew out of it when JFK was still some farm land.
Easy ride into the city via the GWB or a helio
What air space do they use though? I grew up in Chicago and the air traffic controllers controlled all of the airports, O’Hare, Midway, etc. The actual controllers were in a far off suburb. Since Jersey and New York are close by, I bet they control a lot of the periphery of New York or maybe work together.
My good friend’s dad in college was an air traffic controller. Alcoholism is a side effect due to the stress. They thought it was great pay, but not necessarily worth it.
TEB is on site, EWR (Newark) is out of Philly.
I think JFK and LGA are local to those, JFK being in Queens and LGA in Flushing, been awhile for me.
The approach for TEB with the smaller jets is out of the way of the big boys.
FFS, you’re right. https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-commissions-new-air-traffic-control-tower-teterboro-airport
The only thing is, this is happening all over the country and they have to fly in to somewhere. So does their family. There aren’t airports all over the country like that, right? Or is there a network of asshole billionaire airports everywhere.
They probably have a chauffer drive them out of the city to a smaller airport while their personal assistant makes sure they get everything else done in the car on the way.
Same air space.
Depends on how far out you go.
How far do you think that would have to be and I’m pretty sure New York’s airports overlap their air space. Not sure why you wouldn’t want the assholes to fix this.
They want the asshole to fix it, they’re just being skeptical about it because assholes have a tendency to not fix things at all.
And high you fly
You cast your vote for Harris right?
Here is the neat part. ATC controllers in training needed a huge bump in recruiting numbers 10 years ago. These jobs aren’t something you can pull people off the street to do. There can be zero mistakes, trainees need to be vetted and undergo tons of hours in training and education to be experienced enough to work unsupervised in the tower.
I reckon we are past the point of no return with the current system. Either we are going to see a reduction in operational airports or we are gonna see a lot more automated systems directing traffic.
Haven’t you been paying attention? AI will do it.
Yeah, that’s what they just said, Al from Newark did it all for a full 3 hours.
The man’s an absolute megamind.
Al AI huh can’t tell them apart. Font failure.
Put some respect on A1’s name
For high steaks work, trust A1.
No thanks we are a proud red blooded American nation and we use ketchup like real men.
Another option: high speed trains
oh no sorry, it’s US
Not trying to be a pessimist. But we need solutions in the next few months to a year. Even if we went all in on high speed rails, its gonna be years before there are tangible impacts to transportation.
Or option 3: the whole airport system collapses.
They should go on strike but be more organized, unlike the Reagan era
Federal workers cannot strike, by law
Why does law only matter when applied to workers? They’d be better off just ghosting than pocket lines, admittedly.
I don’t know the full details, but I’m not sure how being more organized in the Reagan era would have helped. If the boss is willing to fire everyone, then a strike doesn’t matter anymore.
I guess you could do more to try to prevent scabs from coming in? It’s already incredibly difficult to train up the scabs in this particular niche, and they were willing to go that route, anyway.
They’re understaffed as fuck. The scabs would be completely unqualified and people will die. Not a good look for those striking but at this point it sounds like every day without a crash is a miracle. I completely support a strike.
They’re not slaves. If they’re getting fucked then they have every right to not work.
Could you imagine. For the straight hours, having thousands of lives in your hands knowing full well one mistake could send hundreds of them to their deaths. Bruh. Air traffic controllers need to strike.
How’d that work out last time?
How hard would it be to piss on Reagan’s grave?
They are federal employees. Federal employees can’t go on strike. Shit is fucked up. The US hates it’s labor force and that’s by design.
I keep seeing people say that… But what are they going to do? Fire them?! They have a fucking moral obligation to those flying under their watch, and if they are unable to do that for whatever reason, everything needs to stop until the issues are resolved. Not continuously hoping that crash won’t happen. It’s a matter of when not if.
All of your questions can literally be answered with history, as this type of stuff has already happened. Long story short, since others have typed it here as well, Reagan as president fired all 11k ATC workers and forced the Air Force to help pick up the slack while they looked for more workers. Some of those ATC workers got rehired, but it essentially prevents ATC from having any control of their careers.
forced the Air Force to help pick up the slack
Kindly, do you have a primary source for this? I would like to learn more.
Not OP but “Collision Course: Ronald Reagan, the Air Traffic Controllers, and the Strike That Changed America” by Joseph A. McCartin. This book provides an in-depth analysis of the events surrounding the strike, including the role of military personnel in air traffic control during the crisis.
Thank you
Here is a politico article. About 900 Air Force Controllers were put to work in civilian towers, along with the 3000 supervisors around the country and 2000 non-striking controllers. The article fails to mention Reagan reversed his lifetime ban a few months later and began rehiring controllers.
ATC towers were staffed by non-striking ATCs, along with military personnel and retired ATCs who agreed to return to work.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Professional_Air_Traffic_Controllers_Organization_strike
Thank you
and apparently the stress level and PTSD without actual incidents is very high. can’t imagine being responsible for that many lives and probably not getting paid nearly enough.
Ya they signed up to help planes land safely. They didn’t sign up for incompetent leadership and stress. Too many people in America think, well they signed up for the job so bite the bullet. But no! If you’re job is made harder and more stressful because of poor working conditions, poor leadership, and poor compensation “You did but sign up for that shit!” you signed up because the alternative is worse. Additionally every corporation have decided together to race to the bottom so no matter where you work it’s wealthy ass hats making decisions. You didn’t sign up for that.
It’s less the pay and more the conditions. There isn’t really a wage that would justify making aomeone work like that.
That controller should have walked off and notified media no flights should be handled by Newark until they get their shit together.
This type of heroics can kill people.
Usually, it’s a chain of errors/failures that leads to accidents, after the many years of dissecting and trying to prevent air disasters.
2002 Uberlingen collision is one such case where while the reliance on a sole air traffic controller was part of that chain. And that was with one controller instead of the desired two. 50% headcount. Here it’s 1 or 2 instead of 14-15? That’s 7-14% headcount.
We know overworking people and understaffing introduce substantial risk to managing, assisting, and responding to flights. Even supposing this poor soul could adequately manage the workload by themselves, the introduction of a single problem could throw all of it off.
And it’s a shame that the ATC was murder. He had a small margin of blame, but not enough to kill over.
Yeah. Or the ATC could just tell all incoming planes to divert to another airport because it is “not safe to land”.
It would cause chaos and keep everyone a bit safer.
If there is only one ATC at the helm, precisely ZERO flights should come or go.
so the blame is on the last traffic controller left?
I’m glad I’m not the only one who gets annoying comments from people who can’t read
This type of heroics can kill people.
So that line is not placing blame on the traffic controller holding the tower together?
I assume they are frustrated and they’re talking about how a good heroic outcome has sinister alternatives at every fork in the road. Different people react differently and the people who heroically soldier on are not simply saving the day, they are like an extension of dangerous policy. They’re never going to talk to the controller so it’s more general I think. Like “don’t be a hero, don’t be like this guy, if your bosses create a deadly environment then walk away”
Edit: I can be hypocritical and an asshole so if I say try assuming people are correct, might want to just ignore me.
No, I like your take and while I still disagree on focusing on the most vulnerable person in the chain, at least the way you describe it makes sense as it includes the entire decision making chain.
Thanks for taking the time to explain.
No, it’s not.
So saying the person who stayed behind to be a hero could have killed people is a compliment to that person?
No. It’s saying that the person who stayed behind to do their job (like a hero would do) should have just walked out the door … because if there had been any plane crashes (that killed passengers) that person would have been blamed for them.
Funny how you can say it in a way that does sound like you are not blaming this person…
Give them a raise! Fire everybody who let and allowed this to happen.
just what I want to hear from a drunk engineer : )
there is a reason they say ‘safety regulations are written in blood’…
this won’t change until there is a major disaster, and even then, there is no reason to think it will make any difference to this current dumpster fire of an administration…
(…not to disparage dumpster fires, as they at the very least provide heat and light)
Part of me is wondering if they’re purposely allowing a disaster to occur so they can push through some bullshit AI solution and layoff all existing human ATC
Private jets use mostly the same runways and traffic patterns, and they have enough political power to do whatever they want without prior justification. Occam’s and Hanlon’s razors both tell us it’s probably just greedy idiots. They might try some AI bullshit, but only as part of their tried-and-true method of “break things first and panic later when you realize they were load-bearing”
Hanlon’s razor is bullshit. Especially when we’re being governed by malicious assholes
It takes like 2 years of specialized training to get operators in these comm towers.
I categorically refuse to fly under Trump’s FAA.
The thing is it’s not Trump. Or more precisely it’s not only Trump. This shit started with Reagan. He decided to break the air traffic controller Union and in doing so he inexorably steered us down this path of chaos with our airplanes and airports. Trump is only the most recent president to throw gasoline on this particular fire. Biden did too so did Obama so did Bush.
The thing about Trump though is that he’s setting up even more situations that are going to be exactly like this with all the other agencies he’s trying to de-unionize.
I really wish we had better trains in the USA.
