Hurray for Air Traffic Controllers

JetBlue has scare at Logan Airport: MyFoxBOSTON.com

Fast Thinking Boston Air Traffic Controller
Saves Hundreds of Lives on Two JetBlue Planes

I love competence.

"JetBlue hold. JetBlue 1264 hold right there. JetBlue 1264 Hold! Hold!"

JetBlue 1264 at Boston's Logan Airport with 91 passengers plus crew was taxing to the gate the night before Thanksgiving (back in November, 2010.) It should have gone left but instead went right.

Fail.

The ground controller spotted the error and had I264 stop literally seconds before it would have entered an active runway, with another JetBlue aircraft speeding in from the right on its take-off roll at well over 100 miles-per-hour, faster and faster.

JetBlue 1264 stopped three to five seconds from a two-aircraft fireball with hundreds of lives up in flames. (Watch the video -- judge for yourself.)

The ATC had been on the job 32 years. Experience, competence, counts.

Well done, sir. Well done.

FOX25 in Boston has more.

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700 Days Without a Contract

One of the great things about the GNB community is all the ideas you all share in the comment threads and in emailing me (us). My recent focus/obsession with the plight of airlines, pilots and air traffic controllers, lead one reader to send me an amazing set of links to blogs written by Controllers and I also found some by pilots.

The reader asked, "Why doesn't the progressive b'sphere ever tune into the frequency of any of the excellent air traffic controller blogs?"

Why indeed? I think it is largely that that are so many outrages, so many evils and incompetencies perpetrated by this administration in the last 8 years and the conservative agenda of the last 30 that it is hard to follow even a small % of the topics that need covering.

While looking around the great blogs she sent me to I found this fact.

Air Traffic Controllers who keep everyone of us safe when we fly have been operating without a contract for over 700 days!

Don Brown from Get the Flick is asking for our help.
Write your senator. ASAP!

Senator _______,

I am writing to ask you to sign on as a cosponsor of S3416 -- The Federal Aviation Administration Employee Retention Act.

The FAA's controllers have been without a contract for over 700 days. Controllers are retiring faster than the FAA can train new-hires. Please help resolve this situation now -- before any more damage is done to our National Airspace System.

Please become a cosponsor of The Federal Aviation Administration Employee Retention Act.

======================

Copy the text above and then click here to find your Senators. Fill in the blanks, sign your name and you’re done. Time yourself. You’ll be done in less that 5 minutes. I promise it won’t hurt.
--Don Brown

Don is a retired controller trying to help his former colleagues and expose all the BS that puts Americans in danger every time we fly. He is a patriot for sure and his blog is quite interesting though at times, very scary.

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To the Highest Bidder

I am sure it will surprise you to know that there is a scheme a foot to auction off the runway take off and landing spots at high traffic airports like JFK in New York. And of course it will surprise you even more to know that George Bush and Co. are behind the new plan.

Apparently this new competitive runway plan has to do with busy flight schedules but even more it has to do with having not enough air traffic control staff.

The Bush administration’s decision to impose caps on flights at the three major airports in the New York area, and its plans to auction landing slots at the three airports in a first-of-its-kind experiment to handle congestion, are the subject of intense debate at a House subcommittee hearing in Washington.

Senator Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat who has been a persistent critic of the Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration, excoriated both agencies on Wednesday morning, saying the Bush administration had resorted to “ideological, market-based theory,” while doing little to fill vacancies among air-traffic controllers.

“Instead of focusing on real, tested solutions to solve this problem, like upgrading decades-old technology and hiring an adequate number of controllers to staff New York’s towers, the D.O.T. continues to miss the point,” Mr. Schumer said. “To make matters worse, the F.A.A.’s treatment of controllers has lead to an unprecedented rash of retirements thus compounding the problem.”

At many air-traffic control towers across the country, more than one-third of the staff consists of trainees, Mr. Schumer said. Developmental trainees comprised 25 percent of all controllers nationally as of December 2007, up from about 15 percent in 2004, he said.

Ok, so far my airline/ airport reading and writing have turned up-- unsafe fueling practices, bad FAA leadership, and moves to privatize/ profit-ize critical airport systems as well as a lack of trained and skilled staff. This is in addition to new bag charges, water charges, seat charges and extra fuel charges. I think we are looking at some major impending crashes here. (pun intended)

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More on The FAA

Digging around now in the FAA as a follow up to my Running on Empty post yesterday...

Seems like we have had only an "Acting" FAA administrator since last year. And rumor says he's on his way out too after doing a "Heck'uva Job." His name is Bobby Sturgell. And on paper he looks like an ok choice. He got the head job in Nov. 07 in a recess appointment. Reason for that is that congress was not going to approve any appointee for the 5 year FAA term-- the Dems choosing to hold out to put their own person in place next year. So Bobby moved from deputy to head honcho.

Seems his performance, and attendance, has been questionable. (what a surprise) I can't understand why these guys can't at least SHOW UP to half heartedly do their jobs. Between the head idiot at the pig farm to the new Republican candidate missing most of his votes, the GOP have the work ethic of a three toed tree sloth. (no offense intended to sloths as they can't help it)

According to a reliable source from a position high-up in the aviation community, one Robert Allan ("Bobby") Sturgell recently verbally shared with at least two colleagues the following:

(1) Sturgell has ALREADY given notice that he will be leaving his FAA post as Acting Administrator, by, or in, November 2008; and

(2) Current FAA "Assistant Administrator For Regions And Center Operations" Ruth Leverenz will be "Acting" in Sturgell's absence - (which quizzically therefore will make her the "Acting, Acting" Administrator!).

***

Sturgell's shamed flight from his job, is corroborated by the 2 recent near-misses at JFK airport; FAA payment of US$100,000 bonuses to every Beavis and Butthead who is willing to say "I Was A Teen-Age Air Traffic Controller"; and most noticeably, Sturgell's apparent recent absence at key FAA events. For example, it is reported that in a recent press conference regarding FAA-claimed safety-related changes to exploding fuel tanks, John Hickey (FAA Aircraft Certification Service, Director, AIR-1) spoke for FAA, with apparently no sign of Bobby Sturgell present. Similarly, it is reported that the July 17, 2008 NY/NJ/PHL Airspace Redesign meeting in D.C. was headed by FAA COO Hank Krakowski, and not by Bobby Sturgell.

While we used to ask, "Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego" - we can now ask "Where in the world is Bobby Sturgell?". from John J. Tormey III via iReport

I want to check into the person Bobby "no-show" Sturgell replaced and see what other interesting FAA improvements have been made under the Bush and Co. team of corrupt and incompetent dunderheads.

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