A series of New York Times investigations in 2023 found an alarming pattern of close calls involving major airlines. Here are some of the key takeaways from those articles.
Near misses happen much more frequently than most people realize
In 2023, close calls involving commercial airlines occurred, on average, multiple times each week. The incidents often took place at or near major airports, and they were often but not always the result of errors by pilots or air traffic controllers, according to a Times analysis of internal Federal Aviation Administration records and federal safety reports.
In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2023, there were 503 air traffic control lapses that the F.A.A. preliminarily categorized as “significant,” 65 percent more than in the prior year. During that period, air traffic increased about 4 percent.
The biggest problem was a shortage of air traffic controllers
The vast majority of air traffic control towers in the United States — as many as 99 percent, by one measure — were understaffed in 2023, The Times found. The F.A.A. made up for those shortages by pushing controllers to work longer hours.
Controllers said in interviews and safety reports that they were being pushed to the brink. Some were experiencing mental health problems. Others were falling asleep on the job or showing up to work under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
“What happens when you stretch a rubber band too much?” one retired controller told The Times. “It breaks.”
Lousy working conditions contributed to problems
Controllers were not only working long hours; they were working in suboptimal conditions.
Elevator malfunctions forced employees to climb hundreds of stairs to reach control towers. Bees and biting flies harassed controllers who were directing traffic. Faulty air-conditioners left control rooms alternately broiling or freezing. One employee at a facility in Texas had to bring in lightbulbs from home.
Underinvestments in technology also increased the risks
The Times found that in 2017, after an increase in close calls and warnings from federal agencies, the National Transportation Safety Board called for the F.A.A. to install more systems that alert air traffic controllers to imminent collisions on or near runways.
Over the next six years, however, the F.A.A. did not install a single new ground-based system to warn about possible collisions. Only 43 of the nation’s more than 500 airports serving commercial flights had such systems as of August 2023. An F.A.A. spokesman told The Times that the agency did not have the funding for new systems but was looking for more affordable options.
In lieu of such technology, some controllers resorted to using a public flight-tracking website in lieu of radar.
In other cases — including in Austin, Texas, where two large planes nearly collided on a foggy winter morning in 2023 — a system that gauges the speed and direction of the wind was down for weeks, leaving controllers to rely on a windsock. In New Mexico and Southern California, controllers reported that the radio frequencies they used to communicate with pilots had cut out at dangerous moments. At other facilities, radar feeds that allow controllers to track planes in the sky failed and runway lights malfunctioned.
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