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Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows

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Re: Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows

#211

Post by coin »

hwillis wrote: post #135
Levitz wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because air travel is ridiculously safe. The incident with the helicopter and the plane is making the rounds precisely because of how insanely improbable it is, and even then from what we know, chances are the error was in the helicopter, not the tower.

A plane and helicopter over DC came within 500' of each other over DC barely 24 hours before the crash. They avoided collision because they were over 1000' and the TCAS was still active: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huVFZ__q2rI During the day the only thing that was keeping those collisions from happening under 1000' was pilots seeing each other. At night the only thing keeping it from happening was luck. The erro…

> They avoided collision because they were over 1000' and the TCAS was still active

No. The RPA4514 had the helicopter insight. Pilots are required to follow TCAS RA regardless of ATC instructions or if insight.

What makes you think they would have collided if TCAS hadn't alerted?

Re: Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows

#212

Post by coin »

hwillis wrote: post #210
BJones12 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A plane and helicopter over DC came within 500' ... They avoided collision because they were over 1000' and the TCAS was still active That's not an example of why air travel is dangerous, that's an example of why air travel is safe.

There is a single failsafe which barely worked when the event was above 1000'. Under 1000' TCAS is automatically shut off. The flightpaths in the area of the airport are all significantly below 1000'. There are zero protections there except for the awareness of the pilots.

TCAS RAs are disabled below 1000 feet, TAs are still enabled

Re: Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows

#213

Post by trashface »

bobthepanda wrote: post #129
tayo42 wrote: post #125

Feel like I'm having deja vu in away. Didn't this exact problem blow up a couple years ago?

Air traffic controllers have basically been in shortage for the better part of two decades. The current situation is also because a large clump of controllers were hired after the Reagan administration broke the ATC strike in 1981, and that giant clump of people is now reaching retirement age at the same time.

That group has already retired. The retirement age for ATC is 56, so a 55 year old still working today would have been 11 in 1981. Certainly they were not hired at that time.

Re: Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows

#214

Post by giantg2 »

viraptor wrote: post #194
giantg2 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to possess it as an infant for it to be innate. You don't have color vision when hour born either.

I do mean long term - unless you've got experience with dealing with complex tasks as you grow up, is there any chance at all that you'll be good at that? (Research link welcome)

I was referring to mental imagery. Please see Aphantasia.

Re: Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows

#215

Post by citadel_melon »

gruez wrote: post #126
verzali wrote: post #97

The big question every one seems to be ignoring is whether air travel in the US should now be considered dangerous. If ATC is understaffed or filled with unqualified people, then how is any flight safe? Why would anyone get on a plane unless they really have to and have no other option?

>whether air travel in the US should now be considered dangerous Air travel is orders of magnitude safer than the alternatives. According to the first result on google: "In 2022, the fatality rate for people traveling by air was .003 deaths per 100 million miles traveled. The death rate people in passenger cars and trucks on US highways was 0.57 per 100 million miles" Even if the current administration's cuts made pl…

According to your own figures, if plane travel gets even just 200x less safe, it would become less safe than driving. I mention this not because I know how much less safe flying is going to become, but because you don’t either. 200x less safe may be relatively easy for us to achieve if flying fatalities are as low as I believe they are.

Moreover, I’m not sure if I give into the framing of your figures. According to google, a plane ride on average goes 500 miles, while an average car trip is 11 miles. I am not sure if I’m doing the math correctly, but I’m pretty sure an average plane ride is thus less safe than an average car trip.

Sure, you can argue that a road trip is less safe than the same flight distance as a plane — and I don’t think I would even disagree with making that the standard — but I think saying flying is safer across the board would require narrowing yourself to a more subjective definition for “safer” than your comment suggests.

Re: Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows

#216

Post by bobthepanda »

trashface wrote: post #213
bobthepanda wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Air traffic controllers have basically been in shortage for the better part of two decades. The current situation is also because a large clump of controllers were hired after the Reagan administration broke the ATC strike in 1981, and that giant clump of people is now reaching retirement age at the same time.

That group has already retired. The retirement age for ATC is 56, so a 55 year old still working today would have been 11 in 1981. Certainly they were not hired at that time.

Like I said, the problem has been ongoing for the better part of two decades, and they never quite finished backfilling all of those.

Re: Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows

#217

Post by viraptor »

giantg2 wrote: post #214
viraptor wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do mean long term - unless you've got experience with dealing with complex tasks as you grow up, is there any chance at all that you'll be good at that? (Research link welcome)

I was referring to mental imagery. Please see Aphantasia.

Aphantasia is different than mental simulation. It's specifically to do with visualisation and doesn't seem to affect things like reasoning/planning.

Re: Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows

#218

Post by zamadatix »

jfengel wrote: post #138
zamadatix wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how relevant that is to air traffic control. They don't work from home, they are heavily performance and standards based to even get a chance at joining, and there is no clear reason to assume to automatically exclude the air traffic control portion of the FAA from what's described in #3. The US federal government is one of the largest employers in the world (or the largest, depending exactly how you dec…

Getting rid of the WFH is just the easy thing. They are planning to gut the federal workforce generally. That may be less sledgehammer-like when it comes to people whose jobs are obviously critical. But everyone else is on the chopping block, including quite a few whose absence will be noticed when people die.

I'm not sure I'm any less concerned than you about other areas of government, I'm asking why we should think these cuts apply to the people working in airport towers instead of the kinds areas Trump usually focuses on.

Re: Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows

#219

Post by zamadatix »

watwut wrote: post #159
zamadatix wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how relevant that is to air traffic control. They don't work from home, they are heavily performance and standards based to even get a chance at joining, and there is no clear reason to assume to automatically exclude the air traffic control portion of the FAA from what's described in #3. The US federal government is one of the largest employers in the world (or the largest, depending exactly how you dec…

FAA is leaderless, likely because he dared to give fine to Elin Musk. So yeah, it will affect things. Also, looking how twitter ia shell of itself and looking at Musk knowing even less about goverment ... it will fail spectacularly. And after that fail, they will blame women and non-whites hard.

I voted for Jill Stein, so don't mistake me here, but the head administrator resigned a full week prior to this memo (rather than wait a few weeks to presumably be replaced normally) and an acting administrator has been put in since the memo. How is it this is evidence the memo will affect things when the exact opposite order of operations has occurred around it?

If one wants to complain about the perceived impacts the current administration as a whole will be having... well sure, there's always room for that. I'm talking about why the memo linked above doesn't seem related to the conversation it's in reply to though.

Re: Over 90% of U.S. airport towers are understaffed, data shows

#220

Post by 1832 »

ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #190
yakz wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what evidence is there that the shortage was caused by those 'DEI' policies? For example, in 2013 the FAA Academy was shut down for most of the year (April - December) due to the sequester. They had planned to hire more than 1300 controllers that year but hired fewer than 600. Additionally, part of the changes that brought along the biographical questionnaire had another major change: they opened up positions to…

I'm arguing that DEI/"biographical" standards are indicative of greater rot. The one and only priority of the FAA should be the safe and efficient operation of our nation's airways. That we would sacrifice any amount of safety/efficiency in pursuit of other goals is a major problem. I also apply this thinking to other fed gov programs (eg NSF, DoD, etc) Edit: in other words, how many lives should we sacrifice in our…

Encouraging talented people from underrepresented or marginalised groups to apply, for example through DEI programs, will help find the best candidates to ensure safe and efficient operation.
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