FAA Fat Man on thin Ice

It's just a matter of time till the big Midair
Shuttle program a disaster and the Air Traffic system on edge
This is what you get for social engineering and placing unqualified
minorities
and women in critical FAA and Government safety positions for
Politically Correct quotas



LOS ANGELES - The U.S. is enjoying an unprecedented period of aviation
safety — there have been no major plane crashes in nearly four years and
runway violations are down.

But you would never guess that from the frosty relations between the
controllers union and the federal government, which are in contract
negotiations.

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association has ratcheted up its
criticisms of the

Federal Aviation Administration
http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news/?p=Federal+Aviation+Administration,
saying insufficient staffing and equipment failures are jeopardizing
safety in the skies and on the runways.

This week, the union claimed that severe personnel shortages were to
blame for a series of controller mistakes, including two in the last six
days, that caused planes to fly dangerously close over California.

"You're really dealing with people who are overworked, low morale,
stressed out," said Hamid Ghaffari, the union representative at the
center in Palmdale which handles high-altitude aircraft in Southern
California and parts of Arizona, Nevada and Utah. "Boy, that's not a
good mixture for air traffic controllers."

The FAA says the recent close calls resulted from human error unrelated
to working conditions. The union's claims are nothing more than a
negotiating ploy, said FAA spokesman Greg Martin. The current contract
expires Sept. 30, though it would still be in effect so that controllers
don't stop working.

"We all know what's going on," Martin said. "We're in the middle of
contract negotiations. It's a press release a day with each one being
more outlandish than the last one." DAMN!

The federal government and controllers union have a history of discord
dating back decades — President Reagan fired more than 10,000
controllers who illegally walked off the job in 1981.Controllers' gripes
may be contract related, but their warnings of faulty equipment are
legitimate, according to aviation analyst Mike Boyd said."By and large,
when they say things are not as safe as they need to be, take it to the
bank," said Boyd, president of Colorado-based The Boyd Group. "I can
understand their frustration."

The numbers suggest the nation's aviation safety system is in good shape.

No major airplane crashes have occurred in the U.S. since November 2001,
when American Airlines Flight 587 lost its tail and plunged into a New
York City neighborhood, killing 265 people. Runway safety violations
during the first 10-plus months of the 2005 fiscal year totaled 277,
compared to 295 during the same period in 2004, preliminary FAA
statistics show.

At the same time, those data show that "operational errors" — for
example, when two airplanes get too close in the air — have increased
over the same span from 988 to 1,308. Air traffic safety statistics may
be unreliable, however, because in many cases, controllers report their
own errors.Controllers claim that numbers do not tell the whole story.

A highly touted anti-collision system failed to warn of a near-collision
recently at New York's Kennedy Airport. The system also hasn't worked
properly in Boston because, controllers point out, it shifts into
limited mode during bad weather.FAA spokesman Martin said the
anti-collision system, which has been in place for four years at the
nation's top 34 airports, is just one component of the runway safety
system — with pilots and controllers remaining the backbone.

That's the point, according to controllers who complain of
understaffing.A prime example is Los Angeles Center, where the two
safety problems occurred during the past week, said Ghaffari, the
facility's union representative.The control center is authorized to
employ 310 controllers but has just 217 certified personnel and 48
trainees, including 21 who can do very little because they are brand new
to the job, according to Ghaffari.Both of the recent close calls
resulted from mistakes made by overworked controllers when the facility
was understaffed, he said.

On Aug. 14, Ghaffari said, a small Learjet flying from Wyoming to
Burbank came within 100 vertical feet and three horizontal miles of a
Frontier Airlines jet that had departed Los Angeles International
Airport for Denver. On Aug. 12, a commuter jet heading to Los Angeles
from Salt Lake City came within 800 vertical feet and one horizontal
mile of a King Air jet flying out of Palm Springs, Ghaffari said.

FAA officials said the Palmdale center was properly staffed when the
incidents occurred and that neither resulted in imminent collision danger.

"This is a case where two controllers made mistakes and now they're
trying to blame the FAA," said agency spokesman Donn Walker. WHOLLY ****!
What in the hell is going on now FAA management is BLAMING their
experts???????????????/

"Idjit" == A product of public schools writes:

Idjit It's just a matter of time till the big Midair Shuttle
Idjit program a disaster and the Air Traffic system on edge This
Idjit is what you get for social engineering and placing
Idjit unqualified minorities and women in critical FAA and
Idjit Government safety positions for Politically Correct quotas

Ay-yup. Let's get, say, those good all-white Swiss controllers that
never cause accidents.