FAA Probes Air-Traffic Controversy

Weak managment at some of the Federal Aviation Administration’s air-traffic-control facilities has in some cases undermined flying safety, according to a new internal report and two government investigations.

The most-serious problems have occurred in the skies over Dallas, some of the busiest airspace in the world. A rash of close calls there between airplanes last year resulted from a “lack of discipline” and “cavalier attitude” among FAA air-traffic controllers working for managers who were described as “weak and feckless,” according to an internal FAA report obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

The document raises questions about how well the FAA, which runs the nation’s air-traffic control system, is controlling its own controllers. In June, the agency disclosed in a separate report that its own managers were allowing controllers at a key New York facility to set their own work schedules, a situation that led to millions of dollars in unnecessary overtime spending.

The Dallas-Fort Worth Terminal Radar Approach Control, or Tracon, handles arriving and departing airplanes in about a 40-mile radius of DFW International Airport. The Tracon was the target of a Department of Transportation investigation triggered last year after one veteran controller, Anne Whiteman, documented how “operational errors” — the official term used to describe when airplanes get too close together while flying — were being covered up.

The DOT’s inspector general, who investigates issues inside the agency including the FAA, confirmed that air-traffic controllers had committed numerous operational errors and failed to report them as required. The report also found that managers in the facility had helped hide mistakes for seven years, jeopardizing safety.

“The fact that this improper practice went undetected for many years raises questions as to the efficacy of management oversight,” said Inspector General Kenneth Mead.

In some cases, jets were as close as a half-mile from one another when they are supposed to be at least three miles apart. In one 2002 incident, according to the report, a controller instructed a Sabreliner business jet to fly toward the same spot as an American Eagle flight, the commuter subsidiary of American Airlines. The planes passed within 500 feet of each other in altitude, at less than a half-mile of distance apart, an operational error of “moderate severity,” according to the FAA.

The inspector general also turned up an unreported 2004 operational error when a passenger jet (the report doesn’t identify the airline) was told to climb to 4,000 feet, sending it toward a business jet already flying at 4,000 feet. The planes came within seven seconds of colliding, the inspector general said.

Jets have collision-avoidance systems that are effective at preventing accidents. In some of the DFW close calls, these onboard computers alerted pilots to the potential for disaster.

Whiteman, who has since moved to a supervisory position at the DFW airport control tower, says she is convinced that some of the operational errors weren’t mistakes.

In an interview, Whiteman said that a group of controllers known in the Tracon as the “T-boys” — short for “testosterone boys” — sometimes played games with one another using the airplanes that were under their control. For instance, she said, one controller sometimes would direct a plane under his control to fly toward the same spot in the sky that another aircraft — being guided by another controller — was also heading for. The idea was to see which of the two controllers would be the first to back down and order his airplane to turn away, she charged.

Whiteman’s accusation that controllers may have intentionally endangered aircraft were reported by the Dallas Morning News on July 10.

The inspector general’s investigation found no evidence that controllers were intentionally endangering air traffic.

The FAA believes that the errors documented by the inspector general were honest mistakes, and that managers were simply too lax. Nor was there enough evidence of reckless behavior to fire anyone, the FAA says. “Firing requires an incredibly strong burden of proof that’s just not there in this case,” said FAA spokesman Greg Martin.

The inspector general’s report doesn’t name controllers involved in the incidents. The names of several controllers labeled as “T- boys” were obtained from a government official familiar with the investigations. The controllers either declined to comment or couldn’t be reached for comment.

The controllers’ union says the people involved would never intentionally put aircraft in harm’s way. “I categorically reject that controllers were directing airplanes at each other,” said John Carr, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

As a result of the DOT investigation, the Tracon changed its procedures for reporting operational errors. In the second half of last year, 36 errors were recorded, compared with just two in the first half of the year, when supervisors weren’t checking for errors.

The large number of errors led the FAA to ask one of the supervisors at the Tracon, Operations Manager Clyde S. Ledgerwood Jr., to look into what was causing the mistakes.

Ledgerwood’s report, dated Dec. 18 and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal last month, says operational errors resulted from poor practices and weak supervision at the Tracon. Ledgerwood wrote that the facility, seventh-busiest in the country, suffered “loss of discipline, respect, teamwork, and eventually separation,” a reference to the minimum distance aircraft are supposed to maintain from one another in the air.

The report said that air-traffic controllers at the Tracon, some working in a prone position with feet propped on consoles and listening to AM-FM radios while directing airplanes full of hundreds of passengers, had a “cavalier attitude” traced to a lack of supervision. The facility has about 100 air-traffic controllers, plus supervisors and managers (who oversee the work of the controllers).

FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said Ledgerwood’s report was “viewed as the recommendations of a departing manager to the facility manager, as guidance from somebody who had been at the facility for a long time and understood how it worked or didn’t work.”

Ledgerwood, who retired in February, said in an interview he was given free rein and complete access to compile his report.

Through the first six months of this year, the DFW Tracon has recorded seven operational errors.

The facility, housed in a building at the base of the large control tower in the middle of DFW airport, was placed under heightened scrutiny in June 2004, including unannounced inspections. Radar and radio tapes are being pulled at random for review, and three unannounced visits have been made so far this year, and all errors are being recorded.

“Every indication since DFW was put under a microscope is that it is running a clean operation,” said Martin, the FAA spokesman.

The underreporting of operational errors had its roots in management decisions made nearly a decade ago, according to the inspector general’s report in June. The report found that the DFW Tracon’s top manager at the time began a policy in 1997 where supervisors and other FAA management could investigate suspected errors only if the controller involved gave permission. For instance, supervisors could ask controllers if aircraft had flown too close together — but if the controller said no, supervisors weren’t allowed to review radar and audio tapes.

The FAA says that policy on investigating errors was unique to DFW and has been reversed.

Most controllers involved in the errors were sent for retraining. In addition, some managers are on probation and a quality-assurance manager was reassigned.

The overspending on overtime at the New York Tracon was another case of “lax oversight by management,” the FAA said. An FAA investigation disclosed in June that union leaders there were filling out the work schedules for controllers, not FAA managers. Controllers tallied more than $4 million in overtime in 2004, which was more than double the overtime costs at facilities in Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Denver combined, the FAA said.

“The next step is for management to regain control of the daily work schedule,” current FAA Administrator Marion Blakey said in a statement.

In the wake of the reports, AMR Corp.’s American Airlines — the biggest carrier at DFW — says it has gotten good service from the Tracon. DFW International Airport itself, however, was concerned enough about the inspector general’s report to ask for a conference call with the FAA to hear what the agency was doing to cut down on errors.