DCA ATC goes silent, pilots land themselves. Controller Asleep?

A weird story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/tower-at-reagan-national-goes-silent-as-planes-attempt-to-land/2011/03/23/AB9aslKB_story.html

gets weirder: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/42237593/ns/travel-business_travel/

I was surprised DCA would only have one controller on duty even at midnight. Either way to play off the other thread, don't worry about the aircraft, worry about the people.

 

WTF? How can there be only ONE controller on duty at Reagan? Something
TOTALLY fishy here.....

Jedi

 

Apparently, one controller is normal staffing there after a certain time. The last time this happened, the guy locked himself out-- did something different happen this time?

 

Your tax dollars asleep.

 

Knee jerk reaction is the guy needs to be fired but we dont know anything about his work schedule or what circumstances he may have been in.
Heck, twice in ATL hartsfield in 12 years i've landed without a clearance because we forgot to switch to tower due to fatigue or being overly busy. Never heard a word about it.

 

Heard on the news today he had worked 3 over-nighters in a row....

Just amazing... there were no backup controllers.

Jedi

 

Good thing I never fly into DCA. Crap, never mind.

 

Eh.......... if the runways clear, just land. Thats a heck of alot better than flying into P-56.

 

I think that we should step back and take a look at load or conditions that this controller was working under before we crucify the guy. If this was his third all night shift like they said, I think that the managers need a talking to. And not only for his working midnight shifts in a row but for being the only one on duty in the middle of the night at DCA. I have been where this guy is and it is damn difficult to work against your circadian rhythm for short stints.

 

Good balanced view Bob... but sounds logical to me.....

Jedi

 

seriously?

yikes.

 

This really isn't that big of a deal in terms of safety. The planes in the area can talk to one another and make decisions about who lands next.

It is a pretty big deal in terms of the guy that screwed up though. Interesting story none the less.

 

Bob, I've read the comments about this story on many blogs etc and I think the consensus view is pretty much like yours. They don't blame the controller as much as the procedures that allowed it to happen. -- As for the folks saying this is no big deal, that's got merit to a point. The problem is of course, when you've got 200+ pax in a single plane the penalty for failure is mighty darn high. (see also asymmetrical threats)

Here's one of the more interesting takes I've read on this. http://hotair.com/archives/2011/03/24/travel-advice-you-should-heed-skip-the-red-eye-into-reagan-national/

 

Agree. At most of the smaller tower-controlled airports in our area, there are hours each day where no controller is scheduled to be on duty. The tower frequency becomes the CTAF during those hours and the airport changes to uncontrolled airport procedures.

I wish the news articles knew enough about flying to understand that planes can land without a tower safely. Even large planes do this occasionally.

Still bad news for the controller though. Hope it wasn't the same guy who had is young daughter work the mike and announce clearances that one night.

 

All the Tower does is line up the planes for takeoff on landing. Just because Tower is down doesn't mean ATC is down. They're 2 different things working in 2 different buildings on completely different frequencies. At a large airport, ATC could probably be pretty effective at sorting the order of landings if it were IMC which it wasn't. If Tower were down, no planes would be able to takeoff anyways so the runways would be clear for landing aircraft only automatically.

This is a non event.

 

I can understand a controller nodding off, but how does he or she not wake up when they hear the radio, or the phone ringing, or the squawk box?

 

I feel the same way about the big deal made out of landing " without control". The pilots in the pattern or about to be can communicate and announce their positions and intensions and just land. It is standard procedure around here at night in a controlled or uncontrolled field. Tell everybody where you are and what you're doing. I feel bad for this guy because I have experienced sleep deprivation and it is like gravity, it never sleeps( pun intended). It takes over and you never know it. Four nights of mid-night till dawn duty ALONE! Come on!

 

ha. this ones of the cases where you tie town, call up the FAA and tell them that they need to call YOU.