On Wednesday evening, an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines flight near the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, resulting in the tragic deaths of all 67 people aboard both aircraft.
This fatal collision has raised significant concerns about aviation safety in the U.S., particularly in light of numerous near misses — occurring at a rate of nearly three per week — that can largely be attributed to understaffed and overworked air traffic controllers.
‘The permanent bureaucracy at the FAA decided that it was producing too many white men.’
In December, BlazeTV released a new original documentary, “Countdown to the Next Aviation Disaster.”
BlazeTV host of “Stu Does America” Stu Burguiere delved into the bureaucratic red tape bogging down the Federal Aviation Administration, preventing it from adequately staffing its workforce and implementing essential, overdue technological upgrades.
Rob Mark, a pilot and former controller, told Burguiere, “Half the controllers in the country are working six-day weeks, 10-hour days. And it’s mandatory.”
“There are many other incidents that happen on a weekly basis in our system that don’t make the nightly news. It’s because some controller or some pilot caught it before it got out of hand,” Mark added.
The FAA has about 1,000 fewer fully certified controllers than a decade ago, even though air traffic has increased.
A June 2023 Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General report found that 77% of critical facilities are staffed below the FAA’s 85% threshold.
In April, air traffic controllers at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport told a Southwest pilot to turn into the path of another commercial jet that was about to take off.
Days later, the FAA issued a memorandum requiring controllers to have “at least a 10-hour break from the time work ends to the start of any shift.”
However, the new directive failed to address the underlying controller shortage issue.
Robert Poole, the founder of the Reason Foundation, told Burguiere that the technology used by air traffic controllers is surprisingly outdated.
He noted that one example is the use of “paper flight strips” to track planes.
“It comes off a little printer at the controller’s workstation,” Poole explained.
The FAA has been trying to update the paper system to digital since 1983, but the plans remain behind schedule and over budget.
Poole confirmed a November 2023 report from the FAA that revealed the agency is still using floppy disks.
The report also stated that the agency uses such outdated equipment that replacement parts are unavailable.
“Beacons used to determine the location of aircraft with working transponders,” the report reads. “Includes 331 units that are 28-46 years old. Many of these systems are pre-digital, and many parts are unavailable because the manufacturers no longer exist or no longer support these systems.”
Furthermore, many individuals with the expertise to fix such radar equipment have aged out of the workforce.
The FAA is using more than 1,200 instrument landing systems that are no longer supported by the manufacturers that made them.
“The FAA lacks the intellectual property rights to make its own parts,” the report noted.
Poole stated that the alarming safety report received “virtually no attention” in the media.
Sean Nation, a lawyer with the Mountain States Legal Foundation, explained to BlazeTV that the FAA made significant changes to its hiring process for air traffic controllers a decade ago.
“Up until 2014, they used a merits-based test,” Nation said. “But the permanent bureaucracy at the FAA decided that it was producing too many white men to become air traffic controllers. They decided to change the hiring process and introduce a new first step, which was called the biographical questionnaire.”
Nation, who is suing the FAA, argued that the agency’s hiring practices are not legal.
In 2022, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg declared that 3% of the FAA’s workforce must “identify as individuals with ‘targeted disabilities.'”
“Targeted disabilities” were defined as “individuals who suffer from total deafness in both ears, total blindness, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric disabilities, and dwarfism.”
In a statement to BlazeTV, the FAA — then still under the Biden administration — said that hiring more controllers was “a top priority” for the agency.
The agency noted that it has “implement[ed] engaging hiring campaigns” with the goal of “reach[ing] more youth from diverse backgrounds.”
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News, Aviation, Washington dc, Reagan airport crash, Reagan airport, Federal aviation administration, Faa, Politics
