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Silence Isn't Always Golden
Author: Raine    Date: 03/24/2011 13:10:36

This is just a little too close to home. I mean that seriously. As the crow flies, National Airport is just a three miles from our home. In this case, as the crow flies is significant. Listen:



From the Washington Post:
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has ordered a second air traffic controller to be on duty overnight at Reagan National Airport, after the lone controller was unavailable early Wednesday as two passenger planes were trying to land.

LaHood also instructed the Federal Aviation Administration, which is investigating the incident, to examine staffing levels at other airports around the country.

The two D.C. airliners, carrying a total of 165 passengers and crew members, landed on their own shortly after midnight after attempting to contact the control tower and receiving no response.
The controller was asleep. This story is still unfolding, as the local radio station is reporting, there are ongoing questions such as: where was the Supervisor? Where was the Airline liaison on the ground, and where was the ground crew? We are lucky there was no maintenance equipment on the runway.

This should not have happened. It's the very least that can be said here. Hopefully if the President gets his way, it won't have to happen again. in his FY2011 budget, there is funding allocated for NexGen. The Houston Chronicle writes:
The current system is a relic. It has been in place since the nation's air traffic control system was created in the 1950s. Over those years, air traffic has increased several fold. To further postpone moving from the analog system now in place to a vastly more efficient digital one is unacceptable. It's unfathomable.

The process of updating air traffic control was begun several years ago and will take many additional years to complete. The new system, called the next Generation Air Transportation System, or NextGen, would shift control of the nation's air traffic from a ground-based system to a satellite-based system. The Federal Aviation Administration, the agency overseeing its implementation, estimates its cost at $15 billion to $22 billion for taxpayers and about $14 billion for the aviation industry. Delays would only up that ante, informed observers say.

Funding NextGen is one matter that must not be made subject to the changing winds of budget prioritizing and cutting, as urgent as that effort is. As Chronicle reporter Jenalia Moreno related in a Sunday Business story ("New air traffic system could save time, fuel; But debate about federal budget might keep NextGen grounded," March 20, Page D1), the investments being required of the nation's airlines to plug into the new system are expensive. The carriers deserve certainty about a completion date for the new system.


This incident WAS human error. Had there been more than one person in that tower it could have been avoided. I hear those planes fly over my head every day. I often wake up to the jets powering up in the morning. I love it, to be honest. Today, I will be listening with a little more concern.

and

Raine

Bonus: Plane porn; Gravelly Point Park, Arlington, Virginia.

 

70 comments (Latest Comment: 03/25/2011 04:26:57 by livingonli)
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