Air-safety troubles escalate
Source: Austin American-Statesman (Original Article)
TRAVEL
The Federal Aviation Administration took a beating Thursday, just as it was trying to recover from widespread criticism about recent groundings of thousands of flights because of skipped plane inspections and botched repairs to wiring.
Two developments, both involving Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, highlighted concerns about the nation’s airline industry.
A U.S. Department of Transportation inspector general’s report revealed that air traffic control managers at DFW intentionally misclassified controller errors that resulted in planes flying too close to each other.
And the National Transportation Safety Board said that for the six-month period that ended March 30, there were 15 serious “runway incursions,” compared with eight in the period a year earlier.
Another occurred at DFW on April 6, one of the closest on record, when a tug operator pulling a Boeing 777 failed to stop at a runway when another plane was landing; the plane missed the tug by about 25 feet.
In the air traffic control case at DFW, the FAA suspended the facility manager and assistant manager of the airport’s TRACON operation, which monitors approaching flights that are below 10,000 feet. The FAA said it is considering whether to fire the two managers.
“We’re not going to stand for this,” acting FAA Administrator Bobby Sturgell said at a news conference.
The incidents involved planes that were flying closer together than federal mandates allow in TRACON airspace: 1,000 feet vertically or three miles laterally.
The report found that management at DFW’s TRACON operation, not the controllers, classified 62 events as pilot errors or nonevents when 52 of them were operational errors, or failures by air traffic controllers to maintain proper spacing between aircraft. The other 10 were operational deviations, when a plane flies into another controller’s Lawyers in ACT beginning with J Page 2 airspace without clearance.
The inspector general’s …continue reading