POGO’s wisdom applied to the FAA ATC Senate Hearing
It is not well known that the swearing in of a Member of Congress endows her or him with a blind spot of what was done in the past and perfect clairvoyance as to the future. The Senate Commerce Committee recently held a hearing that attained its goal—headlines all across the country sounding the warning that the ATC system is overstressed and pronouncing that the Chair will fix it.
Though this paragraph qualifies as being hyperbolic, the facts support Pogo’s famous observation: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
Congress bears the constitutional authority and more importantly the legislative obligation to pass budgets that provide the funds required to the executive branch to meet the missions set by the House/Senate. The electorate places some level of priority control of the budget.
The issue of an inadequate FAA Air Traffic Controllers for years. The Obama Administration launched an ill-constructed initiative to identify new candidates; so, the Hill has known about this shortage for more than a decade.
The consequences of ignoring the dearth of controllers were the subject of Senator Duckworth’s hearing—near accidents in the ATC system. EVEN the National Air Traffic Controllers Assocation pointed out that the legislature shares in creating this problem. As Chair of the Senate’s leading aviation safety committee for a decade, Senator Duckworth and/or her staff must have been aware of this impending crisis and no bill was enacted to aggressively recruit the needed controllers.
FAA Under Scrutiny: Congress expresses concern, calls for aviation safety measures
Rebekah Castor, Fox News
The Federal Aviation Administration is in the hot seat as Americans are getting ready for holiday travel. CONGRESS IS WORRIED ABOUT OUR SAFETY IN THE SKY.
It’s holiday travel season and lawmakers are worried about an uptick in close calls in the skies. “Our nation is experiencing an aviation safety crisis,” said SENATOR TAMMY DUCKWORTH, (D) Illinois.
{2017-2023 SENATOR, Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation; Subcommittee on Aviation Operations, Safety, and Security (chair); 2013-2017 us REPRESENTATIVE}
The Federal Aviation Administration says there were 23 serious close calls in the past fiscal year. That’s more than double the amount reported a decade ago. Back in February, an air traffic controller, working on an overtime shift, cleared a cargo plane to land on the same runway where a Southwest Airlines jet was departing. It was a foggy morning and the controller didn’t have radar technology to see that the aircraft came within about a hundred feet of each other, according to investigators.
Duckworth says: “Words fail to adequately describe how close 131 souls came to dying that day.”
Lawmakers are warning that the whole aviation system is under stress. The head of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, Rich Santa, says staffing shortages have caused air traffic controllers to work long hours and the FAA LACKS FUNDING FOR THE TECHNOLOGY TO DETECT AND PREVENT RISKS. HE SAYS CONGRESS HAS TO DO THEIR PART TOO.
“Finally, I wanna stress the need to avoid a government shutdown which would have a catastrophic impact on the national airspace system.”
Last month, the FAA got a new administrator, Michael Whitaker, who says he is ready to tackle the near misses. “I think, what we need to do is really drive the most serious ones down to a level of zero.” The FAA says it will have meetings at over a dozen airports, including Reagan Airport in Virginia, to work on reducing risks.
Originally published on coastaltvnews.com, part of the BLOX Digital Content Exchange.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/15/congress-dysfunction-flying-riskier-00127312
A prestigious panel adds to the strength of this post by its confirming contents.