The National Air Traffic Controllers Association says it’s aware of allegations two controllers at La Guardia Airport left their positions an hour early before an inbound Air Canada Express regional jet collided with a fire truck on the runway. “NATCA is actively discussing these allegations with FAA leadership,” the union said in an emailed statement to the Wall Street Journal, which broke the story Thursday. “We believe those discussions are the appropriate forum for addressing the matter,” the union said. The FAA hadn’t commented directly by our deadline but did tell the WSJ that it was “committed to holding employees accountable” and would not compromise air safety. Two pilots were killed and 40 passengers injured in the March 22 crash.
The alleged departure of two controllers left two controllers in the cab to handle all duties. That’s the normal number of controllers for the midnight shift, but the accident occurred about 11:30 p.m. One of the controllers frantically tried to stop the fire truck from entering the runway after initially clearing it to cross the runway to go to an unrelated incident on the ramp. The controller later transmitted to another aircraft that he had “messed up.”
I assume someone approved their taking early leave.
I hope so for the professions sake. If so, I hope that the news outlets will prominently publish that fact. Just as any profession hopes that there are honest people within their ranks, we all pay the price for those that are not.
How many days in a row had the controllers worked and how much overtime?
Doesn’t really matter….You can not leave the facility prior to the end of an assigned shift without taking some type of leave. Otherwise it’s defrauding the government. Years ago, supervisors had the ability to grant up to 30 min. admin leave to accommodate this type of situation (not sure if that’s still the rule). Sounds like that probably didn’t happen.
Are we sure they are Federal Employees. That 30 minute administrative leave rule is for federal employees.
Yeah, it’s an FAA facility (not contract), so they are federal employees.
One unconfirmed statement said the controllers received 40 minutes of break time for every two hours worked. Supposedly, the controllers worked their schedules so that their last break time started 40 minutes prior to the end of their shift, allowing them to leave work early. Otherwise, they would have been away from the console in a break room, and still not available for a fast-moving crisis.
They are still not allowed to leave the facility before the end of their assigned shift. While they may have been in a break room during the accident, they probably would have been held over on OT to provide relief for the controllers involved in the accident. I would guess that’s how it was discovered they had already left.
“ The alleged departure of two controllers left two controllers in the cab to handle all duties. That’s the normal number of controllers for the midnight shift,”
No need for additional controllers to provide relief. Two controllers is the normal number for a midnight shift.
I wasn’t commenting about the staffing levels. Just merely pointing out that post accident, the controllers involved are usually relieved to allow them to start writing statements, etc. Apparently, the accident happened prior to the end of shift for the two missing controllers.
Who would relieve the controllers involved when the normal staffing level is two controllers?
I’ve seen them bring someone in on OT. Again, I “assume” that’s how these two got caught, they probably were going to be held over on OT.
Finally, the moral of this story is not about staffing levels, it’s about accountability and following “ALL” the rules.
Why would OT be authorized? When the normal staffing level had been met?
The moral of the story, is that there will always be scapegoats.
2 killed and 40 injured and the moral of the story is not appropriate training, not appropriate staffing levels, and not a transponder and/or ADS-B on the fire truck.
The moral of the story, is that we get our pound of flesh from the lowest level employee we can, who probably had yet to fill out their time card for the pay period.
Of course OT is needed to meet AN EMERGENCY situation!!
Take these controllers off the pedestal…”IF”, they did leave the facility without taking properly approved leave, they committed fraud. They probably got caught because of the accident, but they are not being blamed for it or anything to do with it.
Most importantly, we will only ever hear their side of the story. We will never know if they had received previous admonishments for this kind of behavior because the employer can not release that type of information.
You’ve convinced me. You’re right.
We can only hope, for the victims’ families’ sake, that these fraudsters get at least 10 years in prison, and a $500,000 fine.
The solution? Instead of the 6 day, 60 hour week the controllers have seen for a decade now, let’s bump that up to a clean 80 hour week. Remove at least 5 controllers from the rotation, and no pay raises for the next 5 years.
The person(s) who decided to save the taxpayer dollar by not equipping the fire truck with a transponder gets a pay raise, a $50k bonus, and swings the cat-o-9’s across the offending controllers back.
The beatings will continue until morale improves.
Perhaps you could post a list of the regulations that tens of thousands of other government employees must follow that air traffic controllers can ignore because they are air traffic controllers.
Well Max, perhaps you misread my previous post: you’ve convinced me-IOW: Hang ‘em.
If 60 hour works weeks are good, 80 is better. If your normal manning is 2, let’s cut it down to one. Let’s cut the time between shifts to 4 hours.
Let’s make the work environment so much more miserable, that we’ll have them crying in the bathroom stalls.
And if a single one of them so much as takes a skillcraft pen home, we’ll take them to the gallows.
Meantime, we’ll give the EVs a bonus for every position they eliminate.
Reminds me of the joke controllers have been telling for MANY years:
“My daddy is the fastest, he drives a race car at 120 mph,
My daddy is the fastest, because he flies a jet fighter at 600 mph,
Well my daddy is the fastest, he’s an air traffic controller that works until 3:00 and is home by 2:30…”
Let’s not blame bad behaviour on the current situation.
Absolutely!
Let’s make the current situation match the bad behavior!
If they think they have it bad now, wait until they go 7 days a week.
And what’s this two hours on-40 min break?
I don’t know about you, but I don’t get a 40 minute break every two hours! Are these paid breaks? I’m sure they are. I mean what a deal!
I think there is a bigger conversation warranted for controller workload and schedule, REAL staffing levels (not the ones the administration revised downward to make things look better), established practices, and if this was essentially taking break time at the end of a shift. Would it have made a difference? Controllers are a key part of the aviation infrastructure and they’ve been getting $#@7 on for years. Staffing, pay, schedules, etc. I personally know several excellent controllers who left the field entirely because of quality of life, yet the administration keeps making it worse.
If there had been 4 controllers instead of 2, would the outcome have been any different?
Exactly! Which controller saying “Stop!” would have made the truck stop?