According to an internal preliminary study from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the amount of staff members operating in the air control tower at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) in Arlington, Virginia, was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic.”
On Wednesday night, an American Airlines plane collided with an Army helicopter near Reagan National Airport outside of Washington, D.C., killing all 67 persons on board.
A report acquired by the Associated Press revealed that one air traffic controller was operating two roles at the time of the incident.
“The position configuration was not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” according to the summary.
Despite the suggestion that staffing was “not normal,” a person familiar with the situation informed Fox News Digital that staffing in the DCA control tower on Wednesday night was normal.
The source added that the professions are frequently merged when air controllers need to take breaks or change shifts. Controllers may also be required to step away when air traffic is slow, according to the individual, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal procedures.
Supervisors can mix roles, as was the case on Wednesday night, but the individual familiar with the situation could not explain why. When queried about the aviation traffic, which had previously been reported to be heavy on Wednesday night, the insider indicated it was moderate.
Reagan National’s air control tower has been understaffed for years, and as of September 2023, there are 19 fully certified controllers. However, the FAA and the controllers’ union have set a staffing objective of 30.
The FAA’s air traffic controller shortfall is not new at Reagan National or the majority of the country’s air traffic control facilities.
Last year, Frontier Airlines CEO Barry Biffle spoke on FOX Business Network’s “The Claman Countdown” and warned that shortages could cause problems during the summer season if not addressed.
Biffle noted that, while technology could assist address the problem while increasing air travel efficiencies in the long run, the air traffic controller deficit adds to delays and cancellations.
“There’s opportunities to improve the technology that is kind of the backbone of air traffic control,” Biffle told reporters. “If you look at Europe, for example, there are some ideas that we could implement here that would be much more efficient — you’d use a lot less gasoline, get there faster, and so on. That’s a huge opportunity.”
“At the same time, it does not change the fact that I believe we are currently short 3,000 controllers. And so when you get a weather event, it really adds to the delays,” he said. “And, as we’ve seen in the last four days, those delays eventually evolve into cancellations when personnel time out, etc. [I] would really like to see the staffing issue resolved. The technology is probably a longer-term solution.
The FAA’s National Airspace System (NAS) safety review team, formed in April 2023 in response to several close runway incursions during takeoffs or landings at congested airports, determined that year that the combination of several challenges, including an air traffic control staffing shortage, insufficient funding, and outdated technology, “results in an erosion of safety margins that must be urgently addressed.”
“The current erosion in the margin of safety in the NAS caused by the confluence of these challenges is rendering the current level of safety unsustainable,” according to the team’s study.
The shortage has been ascribed to employee turnover and other causes such as limited finances, and as a result, many controllers are working 10-hour days and up to six days a week, according to the New York Times.
