Page 2 - Sleeping Controllers News Today

Right now, as i understand it from officials, their schedules are not consistent across the workweek, and that can add additional wear and tear to people. and then theres in question of how many people you need in the tower to keep them awake. in one of these incidents in knoxville, i believe it was, there were two sections of the tower, one was a regional controller, one was local, the regional controller realized something was wrong, went down repeatedly to try and wake up the local guy. just ...

And last reported, winds were calm. jon: transportation secretary ray la hood reacted to the reports calling the behavior of these sleeping controllers outrageous and ri lick dous. -- ridiculous. mike boyd is an aviation security analyst. so now the guy in charge of air traffic at the faa, mike, has resigned. is that going to be enough? >> reporter: well, if its just a political move to throw him under the bus, but if its the faa administrator starting to clean house which desperately needs to b...

His job. >> what happened in these control towers with controllers sleeping is outrageous. it is the kind of behavior that we will not tolerate. >> reporter: the faa has since ordered at least two controllers in every tower that is open for business overnight. but for the flying public, it has been three weeks of unsettling news about aviation safety. from the sleeping controllers to the 737 that landed with the hole in its roof, to the airbus a-380 that clipped and tossed aside a regional jet. ...

Theres not enough bench strength. they dont have the reserves to fully staff the towers. what were seeing is the normal symptoms of somebody under enormous stress. somebody happens to be the entire air traffic control system. >> let me turn to mary. its not as though theres not just a bench thats lacking. were putting only eight guys in the field when youre supposed to have nine in a baseball metaphor, its baseball season. you were the i.g. for the system. are things getting worse right now base...

Carl? >>carl: it will be quick if you blink you could miss it. senators have talked this is the most overdebitted pieces of legislation in a long time and they argue they are dealing only in tens in billions in cuts and $1 trillion spending plan for the remaining five months is barely going to scratch the surface. impatience looms, they want to get to the big stuff. this has been standing in the way since september. >>shepard: thank you. a major development over the air traffic controllers falli...