FAA official resigns after sleeping controllers

The sad part of it is that the FAA has apparently been doing their job as far as the sleepy controllers go, just not out in public, until after the High Profile deal at Reagan National. As you will notice just this week, they are telling of others, and based on what they have said, they handle it when they find it. I think my only thing here may be how it's handled. Government employment ought not to be a lifetime job guarantee. They ought to be subject to quick and easy termination just like the rest of the world.

the public outrage would be much larger if these were Pilots asleep at the controls. no suspensions, fire these guys!

So what. I know of cops who sleep at night when nothing is going on. And they do it in a cemetary.

I don't think the resigning of the COO of the FAA was warranted in this situation. Regardless who it was, the people hired for this job had a duty to themselves,their families and the American and foreign public to provide a safe enviroment for both the flying public and the flight crews they serve.I think going forward we all have learned from this incident that there is no room for an error than can be avoided.

As long as the controllers are forced to work rotating shifts (as described in the article's last paragraph), these problems are going to continue. Why do administrators refuse to acknowledge well-documented scientific studies that unanimously recommend AGAINST this practice? Let each controller decide which shift he/she wants to work. If necessary, rotate them monthly or quarterly, but not weekly!

indy2001: The deal at Reagan, which kinda brought all this out to light, that guy was not on a rotating shift and to the best of my knowledge, neither were the others. They were just very low intensity, very light activity, lonesome positions but viable sghifts that get worked by people all over the world every day of the week. Sorry, they ain't special. As a matter of fact, most are probably senior people to get out of the high intensity stuff. Rotating shifts & fatigue are a problem but I don't think this is the case here.

The Associated Press might do well to change the headline here, because the story said *nothing* about an FAA official resigning. The headline described the original story, but the above piece does not, IMHO.

I wonder what my boss would say if I tried to justify sleep on the job. Yikes!
If so many have had a practice of this when it was forbidden, I can't imagine how many will exploit this if it's RECOMMENDED! I say hire more controllers, with shorter shifts.
For the government to justify sleeping on the job, could open a rotten can of worms in so many other departments.

Too many controllers sleeping on the job might have another explanation besides lazyness and lack of oversight. It just might be that they are overworked, don't forget that this is one of the most demanding jobs in the entire world, mentally that is, and that of course requires that the controllers get the proverbial good night's sleep before going to work.