Page 217 - Controller News Today

On board was trying to land but could not reach anyone in the control tower. he was in contact with the radar facility in northern california. >> land at your own risk. a federal government source confirms that the pilot tried to reach the controller seven times before landing safely on his own. transportation secretary ray la hood says that incidents of controllers falling asleep on the job, inexcusable.

How serious is that? that really is upper level there, holding people accountable. >> its one of the top officials there in a statement from the faa, the administrator said krakowski offered his resignation. theres little doubt its related to this recent string of incidents at some of the nations airports. babbitt goes on to say his review of the situation is continuing and he says he will do whatever is necessary to keep air travel safe. >> youve been covering these stories. this is the third r...

Occasionally this is what happens. bill: did you not say i think its been happening on a more national stage because it is happening in bigger terminals. its not a new phenomenon? >> my point was probably there is a super sensitivity to it now, and im guessing that it probably has been going on at a certain level probably since controllers have been staffing towers overnight by themselves. bill: the suggestion is to put a second controller in the box or the shack or the lookout tower. now, is th...

Happened early yesterday. the flight was coming into reno from mammoth lakes, california with a critically ill passenger. the pilot tried to reach the tower in reno, not once, not twice, but seven times. the controller apparently slept through it all. here is part of the pilots conversation with a regional controller. >> and they did land. an official says the delay did not hurt the patient but the secretary of transportation calls the episode inexcusable. >> this is ridiculous, its outrageous, ...

Yesterday during a potentially life and death situation. the pilot of a medical flight ferrying a sick patient was trying to land, you can hear the frustration in this pilots voice when he cant reach anyone in the tower. workers at a local radar facility in northern california had to try to help him out. >> cheyenne lifeguard zero tango november. no luck on ground, clearance or tower. weve got a pretty sick patient. we may just have to land if we have clearance or not. zero tango november. theyr...

Those counts. on this "american morning." welcome to "american morning." its thursday, april 14th. the whole gangs back together. >> good to be back with you guys again. boy, did we have a lot of news today. this budget stuff is -- what do you call stuff like this? >> boring but important. >> well make it interesting, not boring. >> being an air traffic controller the most tiresome job? >> maybe hey was reading about the budget. >> an air traffic controller asleep in the tower while on duty. t...

Are others? >> yeah, we can. the faa disclosed that there were two additional controller screw-ups in recent weekses. a controller in seattle fell asleep during his morning shift on april 11 and two in lubbock, texas are in suspension for failing to hand off the control of a departing aircraft and being late taking control of an inbound aircraft. so the number of these incidents keeps going up. >> jeanne meserve. >> this could have gotten bad. you heard the patient say the patient is pretty sick...

Theyre adding a second controller at 27 towers across the country. thats in response to the latest incident t of an air traffic controller falling asleep on the job. it happened in reno, nevada. jeanne meserve is live in washington. what happened in reno? >> reporter: well, this happened early yesterday. the flight was coming in to reno from mammoth lakes, california, with a critically ill passenger. the pilot tried to reach the tower not once but seven times. the controller slept through it all...

>> this is ridiculous, its outrageous. its the kind of behavior that we will not stand for at the department of transportation. the controller has been suspended. were conducting an investigation. and i have said that immediately there will be two controllers in 27 control towers around the country that control planes between 12:00 midnight and the early morning hours. >> but not everyones embracing that. republican congressman john micah was critical saying only in the federal government would ...

One that nobody can talk about because its politically incorrect and thats the point where really you have to talk about controlled rest. if there is an opportunity to rest a couple hours while another controllers work, its only logical to do the same thing that firemen would do. and take a rest and wake up in an appropriate time. thats el lyle in the government. >> we hear from mr. lahood adding that second man overnight. will that do it? is that the solution? zplo no new york. clearly an inter...