Seems rational that, if this was a technical glitch, FAA would have said say very early on. That said, I do not believe it is a union action, either (and I paid dues to that union for years, BTW). If it had been a union action, the pattern would have likely been repeated at other airports. In recent months, both FAA and NATCA have been very cordial, working together trying to get the ATC privatization scam pushed through, as both controllers and FAA managers would then be able to exceed pay limits of around $180K/year (the level paid to elected congressional reps).

(Written on 2016/09/30)(Permalink)

Solid investigative journalists would easily obtain the callout transcript and reports filed by local police and the airport authority. But, the real meaty information is controlled by FAA and NATCA; they know exactly what transpired, but have chosen to hide it from the Public. Interestingly, a few years ago, when a controller at Knoxville made a bed and napped a couple hours, it created a media storm. Likewise, when a supervisor dozed off at Reagan National around midnight causing two late airline arrivals to delay landings, that too created a media storm. But, in 2016, it is as if FAA, NATCA and the mainstream media are colluding to keep us all ignorant.

(Written on 2016/09/30)(Permalink)

FAA stole a page from the Hillary Clinton playbook?

(Written on 2016/09/30)(Permalink)

Appreciate your speaking some truth on this, Tom. People need to understand that controllers in fact do things like sleep, read, listen to radios, use PCs, watch TVs while controlling traffic, each of which is not entirely unreasonable, especially where the controller is stuck being awake all night, often with 2-hours or even 5-hours of zero traffic to work. The problem comes in when controllers drop their vigilance - their ability and responsibility to drop the distraction - and the problem is compounded by both an agency and a controller union (NATCA) hellbent on coverup.

(Written on 2016/09/30)(Permalink)

This is the FAA, in this case. Sadly, this agency actually has staff, highly paid, who exist to obstruct the FOIA laws Congress passed. The two at the top, at FAA HQ, are Duke Taylor and Melanie Yohe. No accountability. I know this as a forced-to-retire ATC who has filed hundreds of FOIA requests with FAA, and had dozens of phonecalls all the way to Taylor, Melanie, trying to get them to do their jobs.

(Written on 2016/09/30)(Permalink)

Listening to the ATC recording, it appears nobody was out of position. The tower controller had cleared the helicopter to conduct local training flights, and had cleared the arriving Cirrus to land, with a late restriction to "...maintain your altitude until turning base...," just seconds before screams are transmitted (most likely from the plummeting helicopter). ATC had reported that she saw the Cirrus, and the Cirrus had told her he had two of the three helicopters in sight. ATC had not alerted the impact helicopter about the arriving Cirrus. The odds of a collision are seemingly small, yet this is exactly the scenario to show the need for both pilots and ATC to be forever vigilant, and for ATC to be tenacious in the application of Positive Control. The problem this tragedy illuminates is that FAA's attitude about mixing fixed-wing and helicopter traffic is simply to push the helicopter flight patterns under the fixed-wing patterns. This approach is inadequate, since it still leav

(Written on 2014/10/24)(Permalink)

I am not trolling, and I do not think Steve Kady was trolling, either. I agree with his sense that (especially at the top of this stack of comments) there is a lot of media bashing. Yes, the media do get a few details wrong, but in no small part because of the FAA and others in aviation. The agency practices too much informational opacity and prefers the media to just pass on their carefully crafted press releases. The manufacturers and pilots are chronically defensive about ANY coverage that shows ANY safety issue in aviation. But, really, to bash the media over 'DIA' vs. 'DEN'? Most of us must be WAY too bored to be debating this. The vast majority of comments posted on this specific article are WAY below the quality we like to expect in FlightAware discussions.

(Written on 2014/10/18)(Permalink)

I am fairly sure that while Stapleton (DEN) was still in use and the big new airport was being built, there was a requirement for a second designation. DIA was the new airport designation and, I think it was a year or so later, with Stapleton (the old DEN) fully decommissioned, that DIA was then replaced with DEN. My guess is FAA feared someone would attempt an instrument approach in rare heavy IMC while perhaps using a Stapleton chart and create a REAL news story. So, they had to buffer in time on the cutover from Stapleton to DIA, before they could normalize the airport code.

(Written on 2014/10/17)(Permalink)

Good points all. The tape I heard, the pilot did sound like he might be impaired. I would be very disappointed in myself if I went home at the end of that shift, after listening to the recording and writing my controller statement. Especially if I knew I wasn't very busy and was getting complacent, failed to take care of the situation. I have known controllers to be balancing their checkbooks while plugged in (back when that was done on paper), but they always (well, almost always) focused on taking care of all their traffic. We all know there have been controllers watching TV or DVD movies (like the hot mic at Cleveland Center, three years ago).

(Written on 2014/09/12)(Permalink)

...we have no evidence that this sector was 'busy airspace' at the time the problem was setting in and identifiable by ATC (slurred speech clue).

(Written on 2014/09/12)(Permalink)