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LaGuardia pilots raised safety alarms months before deadly runway crash

theguardian.com

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Re: LaGuardia pilots raised safety alarms months before deadly runway crash

#41

Post by jordanb »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #7
FL410 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Go look at the atc subreddit, controllers have been begging for help for ages. This isn't one guy's fault.

>This isn't one guy's fault. Counterpoint. It's Regen's fault. He's the guy who decided that a high priority of the government was making sure air traffic controllers had no power to fight back against being horrifically overworked (because unions are evil you see)

One thing people forget is that the key complaints PATCO's members had were:

  1. outdated equipment
  2. staffing levels
  3. workload and fatigue
Reagan went to war with the union instead of addressing these things.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Professional_Air_Traffic_...

Re: LaGuardia pilots raised safety alarms months before deadly runway crash

#42

Post by [deleted] »

jen20 wrote: post #17
metalliqaz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know it was due to staffing shortages? It is common at LGA for one controller to be handling Tower and Ground late at night.

> It is common at LGA for one controller to be handling Tower and Ground late at night. What happens when they need the bathroom, or have some kind of medical problem? If it's really a common case for one controller to handle things, the system itself needs to be fundamentally rethought.

[deleted]

Re: LaGuardia pilots raised safety alarms months before deadly runway crash

#43

Post by coryrc »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #7
FL410 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Go look at the atc subreddit, controllers have been begging for help for ages. This isn't one guy's fault.

>This isn't one guy's fault. Counterpoint. It's Regen's fault. He's the guy who decided that a high priority of the government was making sure air traffic controllers had no power to fight back against being horrifically overworked (because unions are evil you see)

You don't need a union to have effective management. It should also be their incentive not to cause people's death by overworking employees. Which is also dumb because it costs more to overwork then hire appropriately with overtime laws... cops exploit this all the time to steal money from taxpayers. (The ones in Seattle only get caught when they accidently charge over 24 hours of overtime in a day)

Union rules that say only a particular classification of employee is allowed to pick up a small package from a loading dock and move it twenty feet are also bad.

The blame can go to the top, for not managing correctly.

Re: LaGuardia pilots raised safety alarms months before deadly runway crash

#44

Post by RankingMember »

metalliqaz wrote: post #24
ryanmcbride wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe there should be more than one

Maybe. Lets see what the NTSB recommendations say. However despite the downvotes I still haven't seen evidence that they were running understaffed at that moment. What I do know is that the developing emergency on the tarmac due to an apparently hazardous smell in another plane is likely the cause of the confusion that led to this incident. That's a trigger that could have been exacerbated by fatigue but we don't hav…

> I still haven't seen evidence that they were running understaffed at that moment.

I think the disagreement you see is based on the definition of what "understaffed" means. Having one ATC to do ground and air control simultaneously seems like an under-staffing situation to begin with, regardless of whether it's a common practice.

Re: LaGuardia pilots raised safety alarms months before deadly runway crash

#45

Post by afavour »

metalliqaz wrote: post #9
ndiddy wrote: post #5

I just hope they don't try to pin this on the controller who was on duty and move on without putting plans in place for some sort of structural change. Controllers are forced to work 60+ hour weeks and overnight shifts, and the controller in question was working both ground and air control simultaneously due to staffing shortages. If you listen to the ATC audio, he was handling finding a spot for a plane that aborted…

How do you know it was due to staffing shortages? It is common at LGA for one controller to be handling Tower and Ground late at night.

What you just described is a long term staffing shortage.

Re: LaGuardia pilots raised safety alarms months before deadly runway crash

#46

Post by kevmo »

notRobot wrote: post #2

There was a single traffic controller handling the entire airport. This was bound to happen and will keep happening unless things change. It's absurd that the US hasn't been able to fix its ATC shortage in decades. Currently over 41% of facilities are reliant on mandatory overtime, with controllers frequently working 60-hour weeks with only four days off per month.

The US intentionally created the ATC shortage. From Wikipedia:

The PATCO Strike of 1981 was a union-organized work stoppage by air traffic controllers (ATCs) in the United States. The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) declared a strike on August 3, 1981, after years of tension between controllers and the federal government over long hours, chronic understaffing, outdated equipment, and rising workplace stress. Despite 13,000 ATCs striking, the strike ultimately failed, as the Reagan administration was able to replace the striking ATCs, resulting in PATCO's decertification.

The failure of the PATCO strike impacted the American labor movement, accelerating the decline in labor unions in the country, and initiating a much more aggressive anti-union policy by the federal government and private sector employers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Professional_Air_Traffic_...

Re: LaGuardia pilots raised safety alarms months before deadly runway crash

#47

Post by nobodyandproud »

nathanaldensr wrote: post #33
fyrepuffs wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The FAA's problems are systemic and structural. They've existed long, long before the 2024 election.

Mostly due to blind faith in austerity and the market, by certain groups.

Re: LaGuardia pilots raised safety alarms months before deadly runway crash

#48

Post by afavour »

Esophagus4 wrote: post #40
banannaise wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The evidence that this controller was overworked is that practically all controllers in the US at present are overworked. As such, that should be treated as the null hypothesis, and it would require substantial evidence to show that he isn't overworked.

Couldn’t we just… wait to see what FAA says before coming up with our own (entirely speculative) theories?

Can we trust the FAA's conclusion?

Its previous head had a term that didn't expire until 2028 but he resigned after pressure from Elon Musk (who didn't like that he got fined), now a Trump-friendly head has been installed. What, realistically, would be the consequences if he lied? Likely none. Government officials lying on record is an every day occurrence these days.

Re: LaGuardia pilots raised safety alarms months before deadly runway crash

#49

Post by 0xffff2 »

arjie wrote: post #4

> According to the aviation safety reporting system administered by the US space agency Nasa ... Aeronautics, yes, but I was still surprised to see NASA and not the FAA here. But folllowing up here https://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/overview/immunity.html > The FAA determined that ASRP effectiveness would be greatly enhanced if NASA, rather than the FAA, accomplished the receipt, processing, and analysis of raw data. This wou…

I work in exactly this space as a NASA contractor. I don't actually have a massive amount of insight into the FAA, but my impression is that they don't do much in the way of R&D on their own. I think (without hard numbers mind you) the vast majority of FAA R&D work starts at NASA or other government labs and gets transferred to the FAA when it gets to a sufficient level of maturity. In that context, it's even more natural for NASA to host the ASRS system.

Re: LaGuardia pilots raised safety alarms months before deadly runway crash

#50

Post by jen20 »

_ph_ wrote: post #31
jen20 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been six presidents who could have addressed this since Reagan. Every one of them shoulders some of the responsibility.

Yes, they should all have taken actions. But also, it is much more difficult to fix something broken once the damage has settled in. I guess none of them was willing to risk the disruption a fix would have caused. And the system seemed to have held up for quite a while. Weren't there some mass firings of ATC personal at the beginning of the Trump presidency? The bottom line is: don't break things that are difficult o…

The is a good idea, but once they are broken, you should at least try to fix them, or bear some of the blame for not having tried.
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