ATC Asleep at the Wheel (DCA)

[Amish RakeFight]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/us/24airport.html

Control Tower Unresponsive to 2 Planes in Washington

By ANAHAD O’CONNOR

Published: March 23, 2011

Two passenger airliners landed at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington without clearance or guidance from the airport’s control tower early Wednesday, and officials were looking into the possibility that the air traffic controller on duty had fallen asleep.

One of the planes, an American Airlines Boeing 737 from Dallas, approached the airport around midnight but aborted its landing and circled the airport after pilots got no response from the tower. About 15 minutes later, a United Airlines Airbus 320 from Chicago also tried unsuccessfully to establish contact with the tower.

Both planes made contact with a regional tower that guided them in, and both landed safely, said Peter Knudson, a National Transportation Safety Board spokesman.

Mr. Knudson said that it was unclear why the Reagan controller had not responded, and that the agency was looking into the possibility that the person had fallen asleep. In a statement, Laura Brown, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said the agency was looking into “staffing issues and whether existing procedures were followed appropriately.”

Both planes followed an established procedure for landing at an airport with unstaffed towers, which occurs at some smaller airports that do not have controllers in the early morning. When the first plane, American Airlines Flight 1012, approached the airport and did not get a response from the tower, the pilots radioed a regional center — the Potomac Terminal Radar Approach Control facilities. Workers there then tried unsuccessfully to reach the tower by phone. A s the plane circled the airport, its pilots tuned into the control tower radio frequency, broadcasting their position, speed and distance to alert other planes as Flight 1012 came in for a landing.

That procedure helped clue in the pilots of the second plane that arrived 15 minutes later from Chicago. Mr. Knudson said that shortly after it landed, the controller at Reagan “became responsive.”

Ray LaHood, the transportation secretary, said he had instructed the F.A.A. to study staffing levels at other airports, and told the agency to put two air traffic controllers on duty during the midnight shift at Reagan.

“It is not acceptable to have just one controller in the tower managing air traffic in this critical air space,” he said.

 

[belchfire]

I caught a report of this on the FM broadcast radio this morning. What bothered me most was the seeming amazement that the reporter had that pilots could actually land airplanes without interference from someone on the ground!

 

[Amish RakeFight]

The public doesnt realize how often commercial flights land and depart without ATC assistance on the field.