Page 414 - Traffic Controllers News Today

After five years of very difficult relations between faa management and the air traffic controllers, controllers have a new contract now and they are starting to cooperate a lot more on issues. one of the main issues they are cooperating on is the reporting of niece near misses. i dont know if you have more near misses happening but youre definitely seeing more reporting happening and that is really kind of what the faa wants to get at, because you cant really solve a problem until youre fully a...

Happening in the future. i think this is exactly what youre doing here, where previously air traffic controllers and faa wefrpbt even talking to each other -- werent even talk to to each other. i think with randy babbitt over there youre seeing changes how they are working together. this is the ugly side of it but down the road well see improvements. jon: is there an echo here when in 1980 president reagan fired all the air traffic controllers, new people came in and took their jobs. new people ...

>> reporter: last year air traffic controllers nationally committed roughly 950 errors. the washington air space is the third busiest in the nation. and 177 controllers and 49 of whom are still working towards full certification and meaning they are still learning parts of the job. >> experienced traffic controllers in the tower. educate the people. >> reporter: a turnover in the system could in part be the issue. controllers are required to retire at age 56 or after 25 years of service. meaning...

Aging as well. you know, theres a mandatory retirement at age 56. >> sure. >> of all traffic controllers. >> and back in 1981, i remember when -- after the patco strike and ronald reagan installed new guys and gals in those towers and now a lot of those guys are retiring but peter, youre down to washington right now and according to this report, 49 of the 177 air traffic controllers, 49 have not yet been certified which sounds to us like there are guys up there who are not completely ready for t...

Many reporting needs are voluntary and air-traffic controllers can really screw up and come within feet of a major disaster and not report it, is that accurate? >> well, what we have here is a coverup system. weve had stories weve gotten from controllers where part of the equipment will break and the supervisors will cover it up. i think we have a new day at the faa with a new at minute straighter but we have -- but we have a situation where congress will not consistently funded faa and airline ...

Do you think he should be fired? >> i think he should be disciplined. >> he already has been disciplined, i think. >> i dont think being suspended with pay is particularly a disciplinary action. i think thats pending see what happens. >> lisa would we even be talking about this if we were in this age was airline or is it something that everybody is hyper sensitive about? >> its like joan rivers being considered a security risk, because the passport is her stage name, not her real name. the air t...

Course cheap its their main business model ive just actually checked earlier today you can right now fly through pretty much all across europe for anywhere between six euros and fifteen euros so with prices like that of course you cannot pay your people well there is basically no profit margin no wiggle room at all so if they do end up having to pay them about. or that pretty much threatens the entire company very briefly and how far do strikes there are not coming from the company but from arab...

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Down to we believe 6,000 feet before slamming into the mountain. only stayed at that altitude for a few minutes, then began a descent and then hit the mountain we believe in somewhere in the neighborhood of 10:40, 10:42 a.m. it was a rapid descent. the question is why over the course of that time did the crew never talk to air traffic controllers, never radioed a mayday. in fact why did they order that descent to begin with? was there something going on at that eight attitude that was of great c...

Suddenly just disappear, not on from radar but from radio communication, both to air traffic controllers and back to the home base. and so they dont have much to go on. these two fuel slicks on the water are the on thing they have to go on. this is a heavily traveled area with tankers and fishing trawlers and everything else in this region. theyre going to look for any piece of wreckage that might be on the surface of the water. if they find that, maybe they can begin to find out where are the c...