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Air traffic controllers pushed to the brink

nytimes.com

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Re: Air traffic controllers pushed to the brink

#261

Post by strken »

rowanG077 wrote: post #222
strken wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nitrous oxide is a popular inhalant. It's reasonably safe despite the usual hysterical claims, and it's unregulated in most countries, possibly because regulating it would drive users towards more harmful inhalants like glue and petrol.

It's not safe at all. In my country there are many people who have destroyed their brains using it. I would say even drugs like cocaine are safer.

It's comparatively safe. See e.g. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20503245221127301. Cocaine is a very dangerous drug both because of its physical effects - cardiac issues, stroke, seizure - as well as its effect on risktaking. In order to "destroy your brain" using nitrous you need to take heroic quantities of it and get hypoxia: from memory somewhere near a hundred times the typical dose is required, and it must be maintained over a long period of redosing. For more dangerous drugs, that multiple is lower: heroin can be lethal at 1.4x the typical dose.

It is wrong to claim it's an especially dangerous drug, particularly if your evidence is an anecdote about "many people who have destroyed their brains" in a nameless country based on no quantitative evidence and citing no personal experience.

Re: Air traffic controllers pushed to the brink

#262

Post by instagib »

losteric wrote: post #27
tayo42 wrote: post #5

Well that was worrying to read since I flight through San Diego coming up. Why are the budgets low and why is our government running atc like a best buy durring holiday season?

- ATC is a difficult job both in terms of training required and day-to-day work - There are high health requirements to hold the job, which should be revisited - The federally mandated retirement age is relatively low. - Pay is not attractive - Overall FAA funding is largely set by the finicky Congress, which swings between extreme austerity and moderate fiscal pragmatism - Airports can supplement federal funding, bu…

Talking to FAA controllers would dampen interest in these jobs. If everywhere is understaffed, the current staff has to overcome that. Rotating shifts during the week is pretty hard on your body as well in an already stressful job. But supposedly they know their schedule a year in advance.

Is overtime mandatory or voluntary? https://www.jetwhine.com/2008/02/atc-overtime-faa-controller... Looks like a mix of both. Answer your phone, it’s mandatory.

I’ve talked to a few ATC people. One quit his job due to the stress. “The money was not worth it”. They were getting panic attacks and drinking to sleep as mentioned in the article.

There is also a pilot shortage and it takes a long time to get to being paid well after over $100k in training fees.

Re: Air traffic controllers pushed to the brink

#263

Post by rowanG077 »

uoaei wrote: post #239
rowanG077 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure phones can explain it. Even when I was in high school 10 years ago everyone had a smartphone with social media.

You didn't have the same platforms nor the same dynamics on them. Social media has evolved over the past decade.

Definitely. But then smartphones are not to blame. The algorithms are.

Re: Air traffic controllers pushed to the brink

#264

Post by paxys »

akira2501 wrote: post #205
oatmeal1 wrote: post #77

People are seriously concerned with aircraft near misses when we let cars kill 45,000 Americans a year. Absurdity.

50% of accidents are single vehicle accidents that involve drugs or alcohol. It's more if you add in youth an inexperience. So, _most_ vehicle deaths are self-inflicted. 16% are pedestrians. They usually get hit from behind, and even if they don't, almost always at night. 16% are motorcycles. I ride. I love riding, but the reason for that statistic is obvious. There's zero safety margin when you're on one. Finally, t…

People aren’t driving drunk and high in a vacuum. You are affected by them even if you are the most careful driver in the world.

Re: Air traffic controllers pushed to the brink

#266

Post by [deleted] »

davemp wrote: post #257
macNchz wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The lack of automation is causing ATC work to be stressful. … > And it would free up ATC staff and pilots to do more urgent things. There’s a problem that can happen with this, though, wherein the “easy” routine work is automated out and the number of humans involved is scaled down, but the work those people do then winds up being 100% the urgent/stressful stuff. I’ve heard that ER doctors have been experiencing th…

> I’ve heard that ER doctors have been experiencing this in recent years–not quite with automation so much as just offloading, as less serious cases are picked up by nurse practitioners/urgent care centers, staffing has been adjusted and the actual physicians wind up with a steady stream of stressful high-acuity cases back to back to back. Yet at the same time, ERs (near me at least) are still inundated with so many…

[deleted]

Re: Air traffic controllers pushed to the brink

#267

Post by ericbarrett »

philegibbs wrote: post #258
anjel wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've been talking about automated ATC for at least 20 years now, in part for getting the benefit of more flights arriving and departing per hour than humans can safely manage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Generation_Air_Transporta...

They have been working on automated ATC for a lot longer than 20 years. I worked at Eurocontrol 1991-1996 where they had been developing a system called ARC2000 since well before I arrived. As the name suggests it was intended to take over ATC in Europe by the year 2000. I worked on a less ambitious system that helped visualise conflicts for manual resolution but that was not a big priority so I eventually left.

My internship in the mid-1990s was with a professor studying VR systems for ATC for low-visibility operation. At the speed this field changes (or doesn't), I doubt I'll see it in my lifetime.

Re: Air traffic controllers pushed to the brink

#268

Post by sokoloff »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #230
sxyuan wrote: post #189

There's an increase in incidents because ATCs are overworked and understaffed. The knee-jerk reaction is to try to automate the work away. A few problems with that kind of thinking: - Automation already exists - e.g., the collision detection warning mentioned in the article. I don't know much about air traffic control but I imagine there's some element of defense in depth. ATCs dozing off or running on fumes won't ca…

The lack of automation is causing ATC work to be stressful. People orchestrating complex procedures over a shared vhf radio channel is inherently hard and error prone. Which is why it involves people endlessly confirming and double checking known bits of information. Automation could simplify that a lot and remove a lot of the uncertainty. Making communications easier might save some lives. A lot of accidents are cau…

> Dealing with ATC is very stressful for pilots.

This is not my experience at all, and I suspect is also not at all for air carrier pilots who deal with ATC on every flight.

Sure, the guy in the 170 or J3 who mostly flies off his farm might be stressed by flying into the big city airport, but the vast majority of pilots who interact with ATC regularly don't find it particularly stressful.

Re: Air traffic controllers pushed to the brink

#269

Post by harvey9 »

PaulKeeble wrote: post #29

Car accidents are up as well, less so this year than last. Both Air traffic and Car accidents have been up since 2020. Its not unique to Air traffic control. https://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyamohn/2023/09/28/road-crash... Its also happening worldwide, more air traffic near misses in the EU alongside road accidents as well. I suspect its world wide.

Don't recommend using 2020 as base given lockdowns resulted in much fewer miles driven

Re: Air traffic controllers pushed to the brink

#270

Post by beardedwizard »

saalweachter wrote: post #250
phreeza wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interesting hypothesis but should be easy to corroborate with other data, e.g. test scores. I would assume we'd have heard of that?

If we're drawing connections between 2020 and driving behavior, the much more obvious correlation would be the massive anti-police-violence protests, the accompanying increased negative public sentiments re: police, and the police reaction that occasionally gets brought up on HN, decreased policing as retribution.

Underrated comment. Police have "quit" in more than one major city in sfbay.
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