Flying public at risk… from the FAA!
Posted by Paul on 22nd January 2007
Just a couple of weeks ago, AssMonkey wrote about “The Daytona Disaster” that didn’t happen… no thanks to the FAA. The agency is continuing the madness and deliberately putting people’s lives in danger.
As a refresher: The FAA banned all radios from air traffic control towers when they imposed their new work rules on September 3rd, 2006. They claimed that the radios were a distraction. Tower managers and supervisors across the country went and physically removed the radios, often chortling with glee that it was a new FAA and by God, they’re in charge now.
Controllers protested, pointing out that they don’t have any way of knowing about emergency hazardous weather conditions- like tornados- without the alerts that those radios can provide. NATCA, the air traffic controllers’ union, filed grievances and even just asked for the alarm-type weather radios that are so important to many people living in the Midwest and South.
The FAA refused to allow any radios. No music, no talk, no nothing- not even weather alert radios. Period.
On Christmas 2006, a tornado slammed through the Daytona Beach area, including the airport. It did tens of millions of dollars worth of damage and destroyed dozens of airplanes belonging to Embry-Riddle University at the airport.
What’s more, the tornado just missed the control tower (by 100 yards or less) and a Comair flight carrying 54 people on board almost wound up landing as the tornado was crossing over the airport- a very near disaster.
After this, when the controllers pointed out to the local media that even weather radios were banned and that flights were in danger, one of the FAA’s spokesflacks flatly said this wasn’t true.
After the tornado, Kathleen Bergen, another FAA spokeswoman, said the agency never banned weather radios in control towers.
“The weather radios were not banned at Daytona or any other tower,” she said Dec. 28. “Daytona simply didn’t have weather radios prior to the Christmas Day event.”
Well, with that news, the Daytona tower manager went out and, borrowing money from the coffee fund at the facility, bought a couple of weather radios. They have pretty fancy weather alarm radios now; you can program in your zip code and the radio will give you specific alerts for your area.
The controllers were delighted that the FAA had changed its mind. These radios will not only protect the flying public, but they’ll also add to the individual safety of the controllers.
Oops. Check that- they did for a week or two. Then…
But the FAA’s national headquarters ordered the radios removed Friday, said Kelly Raulerson, Daytona controller and representative for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.
“We now have no way of knowing if there is any tornadic activity in the area,” she said.
Raulerson said the radio ban compromises passengers’ safety.
Tammy Jones, an FAA spokeswoman in Washington, disagreed. “As a matter of fact, the decision to ban those electronics is so that controllers can focus on the safe operation of airspace,” she said.
Jones said the agency simply was enforcing in Daytona Beach the ban on radios enacted in September.
Only in today’s FAA can someone claim that an electronic device that gives alerts to hazardous weather in the local area somehow DETRACTS from the “safe operation of the airspace”.
What Jones is saying here is basically that the controllers will be able to provide more safety in that airspace if they don’t know about hazardous weather (like tornados) in the airspace! (George Orwell would be proud.)
Naturally, the media asked this new spokeswoman, Jones, what the deal was and why a previous spokeswoman had said weather radios were okay…
Bergen was not available for comment Friday. Jones said she did not know why Bergen said the weather radios were allowed.
Please excuse what I’m about to say… but what the fuck is wrong with these people? This is a no-brainer.
The controllers don’t have any way of knowing if there’s a tornado alert for the immediate area- during the bad weather of the Christmas storm, they never even SAW the tornado and didn’t know it had just blown airplanes and bits of building across their airport until the Comair flight told them about it, because it was raining so hard they couldn’t see much out of the tower windows.
This decision not only puts the controllers at risk, it puts the flying public at great risk. As the article said:
On Christmas Day, Comair flight 5580 from New York’s LaGuardia Airport was scheduled to land in Daytona Beach at 1:39 p.m., about 10 minutes after a tornado warning had been issued. The tornado hit at 1:45 p.m. and the plane landed safely at 2:06 p.m.
The flight was delayed because the radar room briefly lost their power. Had it tried to land during the tornado, the loss of life would have been massive. AssMonkey’s entry is a pretty good description of what could/would have happened.
How could the FAA do this?
What are they possibly thinking?
Are these people complete idiots?
Is it THAT important to them, that they ruthlessly impose their will onto the controller work force, that they will even ban weather alert radios that can save the lives of the flying public?
The first goal- the very reason we have an FAA- is to increase safety and protect the public. The people running the FAA are so eager to make a point and be right that they are willing to put lives in danger.
This is so simple that it’s amazing to me that it’s even an issue. It makes me sad just to think about it- and more than a little angry. These people, running the FAA, aren’t just stupid- they’re intentionally reckless. If an airplane smashes into the ground in a situation where a weather alert is being broadcast on the emergency radios, and the controllers don’t warn the airplane, the FAA will not only pay out millions of dollars in damage, but the leaders running the FAA should be prosecuted for manslaughter and personally sued.
I can’t believe this is even an issue, but in this FAA, with these leaders, it is. Simply amazing. That’s how desperate the national headquarters people are to prove a lesson to the controllers and NATCA- they’ll deliberately put the flying public into greater danger.
Give thanks that the Democrats in Congress are promising some actual oversight of the Bush Administration and the executive branch of government. The nation sure does need it.
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