Should They or Shouldn’t they – Sleeping on the Job

As a demonstration of the FAA’s zero tolerance policy, the seven controllers who were suspended were the seven caught sleeping during their shifts.

The FAA is adding an hour of down time between shifts, hoping that hour will make a difference. A bit of magic thinking there. The FAA doesn’t even allow napping during break time.

Rather than pay for naps or schedule unpaid naps, the FAA has rejected the possibility of controlled on the job napping, which is the solution offered by other countries like Germany and Japan which provide rooms for that purpose.

Yet how many exhausted controllers have made bad decisions based on being sleep deprived? According to research, US air traffic controllers get average 2.3 hours sleep before their overnight shifts.

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    Cleveland ATC: A Close Call

    What: Expressjet Embraer ERJ-145 en route from Cleveland to Kansas City Missouri
    Where: Cleveland Ohio
    When: June 26 2009
    Who: not available
    Why: Runway Incursion aborted. While at the controls, an air traffic control trainee scheduled the Expressjet and a CommutAir de Havilland Dash 8-200 on a collision course. The Expressjet pilot perceived the danger in time to avert the incident.

    The same trainee caused a similar incident between an Expressjet and a Southwest flight on June 3.

    George’s Point of View

    The trainee in question had very little experience. I am more critical of the training process than the trainee. What preparation was there ahead of time? That question is not answered for us. Perhaps this incident is proof that a training system is working, since a collision did not happen. Or perhaps it is an indicator that training methodology needs to be revamped. (Do air traffic controllers train on simulators? I don’t know.)

    What will we learn from this event? What will the ATC trainers learn?

    If I had been a fly on that console, I’d have quizzed that trainee on what he learned from his mistakes. One does not have to make mistakes to learn, but to progress, one must learn from ones mistakes.

    Skill, like character is forged like steel from iron, in trial by fire. How else does an expert become one without the benefit of experience?

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    Alert! Alert! FIRST LADY in no DANGER whatsoever.

    Wake up ATC. Turn off the TV. The eyes of the media are on you again.

    It is the air traffic control’s responsibility to watch the distance between planes. That includes the one Michelle Obama was on. Not that she was in any danger.

    Please note that the reportage below is somewhat exaggerated but these planes should be 5 miles apart. Let’s do avoid the wake turbulence, shall we?

    Now, if you’re really interested, you can leave our site and go check out the CBS Recording of Michelle Obama’s plane being diverted which CBS so uncharitably does not allow to be embedded. If you listen to this recording, and you should even though you will have to sit through whatever advertising they put at the start of it, do take note of the calm, matter of fact manner of both the pilot and the air traffic controller. This was a routine situation go-round.

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    Oslo: Near Miss

    On Oct 31, 2013, a Norwegian Boeing 737-800#LN-DYC en route from Trondheim to Oslo with 130 passengers and 6 crew, was descending towards Oslo and was switched to a different runway. A second Norwegian Boeing 737-800 #LN-NOM en route from Oslo to Trondheim took off. Instructions from ATC became confused, and both planes followed a single instruction, bringing them into proximity.

    Flight 741, which was landing, was below Flight 740. Flight 740 got a TCAS (Traffic collision avoidance system) warning and diverged. Accident Investigation Board Norway noted the minimum separation between the two aircraft was down to 0.2nm lateral at 500 feet vertical.

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    Transaero Go-round


    Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
    Contact photographer Erezms

    What: Transaero Boeing 737-400 en route from Moscow to Tel Aviv
    Where: Tel Aviv
    When: Dec 15th 2009
    Who: 102 passengers and 7 crew
    Why: On approach to Tel Aviv, twice the plane received re-directs, and in both cases, the flight made a go-around. (The approaches were made to runways scheduled with departing traffic.)

    On the third approach, the plane landed safely.

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    Proximity Blamed on Tenerife South ATC

    On November 12, 2011, the Iberia Airbus A321 had been approaching Tenerife South airport at high speed just before it landed on the same runway that a Jet2 Boeing 757-200 was departing did so because of a premature take-off clearance to the 757.

    The 757 was airborne over the runway as the A321 touched down at an unexpectedly fast approach. Although the A321’s airspeed had decreased constantly through the descent, its ground speed was 210kt. Expected airspeed is in the 180-203kt range.

    The planes were separated by at least 4,100ft.

    The incident has been attributed to the tower controller’s “improper handling” of the take-off clearance to the 757.

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    LAX Wake Turbulence


    Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
    Contact photographer Francisco Muro


    Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
    Contact photographer Rudy Chiarello

    updated
    What: American Eagle Embraer ERJ-140 en route from Lindbergh Field San Diego to Los Angeles
    What: LAN Airlines Boeing 767-300 from from Lima Peru to Los Angeles, CA
    Where: LAX
    When: Jan 19th 2010
    Why: At the time of the American Eagle’s arrival to LAX, both jets were flying at the same altitude. The danger was not collision. The danger was wake turbulence. Required separation behind the Boeing is 5 nautical miles.

    George’s Point of View

    Trailing behind an aircraft, wake turbulence is made up of multiple force drafts including wingtip vortices and jetwash. Jetwash is jet engine gas output which is turbulent but of short term but wingtip vortices can remain for up to three minutes.

    Picture, if you will, invisible speed bumps made of wind that could knock your car off the road trailing the car in front of you. If this were a factor with cars, tailgating would be a completely different thing.

    A cockpit voice recorder of the pilots responses will clearly indicate if the plane in the rear of the situation runs into the leading aircraft’s wake. What officials are questioning here are the actions and responses of LAX Air Traffic Control, which placed these two jets close enough to be endangered.

    On January 19, maybe Air Traffic Control error put the Eagle jet less than three miles from the 767, but the pilot managed to stay out of the other jet’s wake. LAX denies this is a case of inexperience and maybe they are correct, because the worst case scenario crash did not happen. Maybe it would have happened if the jet following were flying at lower altitude.

    What matters is that the flight landed safely and whether it was ATC or the pilot, someone did something right because both flights made it to the ground safely.

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