Trainees In The Tower In Airliner "Swerve"

[allardjd 1,853]

This is the latest runway incursion incident here. I think this is #24 for the year, which equals the number

of events in all of last year.

From AVWebFlash...

An incident that thankfully ended with some fairly rattled pilots and passengers but no more than a little

lost tire rubber begs the question of who is training whom at some of the nation's air traffic control towers.

The National Air Traffic Controllers Union says two trainee controllers were in on duty by themselves in the

Lehigh International Airport tower when a Mesa Airlines CRJ700 had to swerve (as in the sudden deviation

from a straight path) to avoid a just-landed Cessna 172 while taking off from the Allentown, Pa., airport.

The widely accepted estimate is the RJ, with 60 passengers aboard, missed the 172 by about 10 feet while

decelerating from 120 knots. According to the NTSB, the Cessna was told to take an early taxiway exit but

missed and the pilot reported he or she was heading for the next taxiway. The trainees missed that and,

thinking the 172 had left the runway, cleared the RJ for takeoff.

The Mesa crew apparently heard the 172 pilot's report that the controllers missed but started the takeoff.

They were almost at rotation speed when they spotted the Cessna and swerved to miss it. While no one is so

disputing the facts of the incident, NATCA is suggesting a shortage of qualified controllers played a role and

it's sure to come up at a meeting of the House Aviation Subcommittee on Thursday to discuss--runway safety.

"The FAA is so desperate to staff its towers they are forced to work trainees by themselves without adequate

numbers of experienced controllers there to work with them," said NATCA President Patrick Forrey. "This has

exposed the inexperience of our new workforce. It's unfair to these trainees and should be unacceptable to the

flying public." The Mesa flight (operating for United) was cancelled.

Of course the union believes the solution is to have more (dues paying) controllers on the FAA staff, and

of course the FAA says the fix is in process and it's just a matter of time before things improve. I suspect

both are right - and both are wrong.

I suspect the controllers, while officially designated as "trainees", were not so inexperienced that they could not

reasonably be expected to perform acceptably. The primary responsibility for the event rests with them, though

they certainly had some help in that by the crew of the Mesa AC who did understand that the 172 had not exited

the runway and didn't question the takeoff clearance.

The union does everything it can to shield its members from responsibility for their actions - it's what unions do.

On the other side, government agencies, faced with an event like this, always seem to want to reach for something

that will make it utterly impossible for that event to ever occur again anywhere. That's unrealistic and generally

fails, but in the process leads to higher costs and a more convoluted and complicated system for everyone to deal

with.

I wonder if anyone has considered slapping the hands of the controllers who cleared an AC to take off from a

runway that still had an arriving AC on it? Separation of AC is their primary responsibility and they didn't do it

properly.

[hurricanemk1c 195]

Not related to this at all, but when KLM 804 crashed at Shannon ages ago (it was a Super Connie) they made sure that every tafe-off and landing was seen by at least 2 people

So the trainee should have been supervised by someone listenig in on all of his/her conversations with the aircraft that he was controlling

Kieran