ATC Equipment Checks Less Detailed

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has intentionally become less detail-oriented in the way it maintains and certifies the safety of its ground based equipment, such as radar and instrument landing systems. The change is aimed at making agency inspectors more efficient, and is made possible by the...

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The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has intentionally become less detail-oriented in the way it maintains and certifies the safety of its ground based equipment, such as radar and instrument landing systems.

The change is aimed at making agency inspectors more efficient, and is made possible by the fact that modern radar and other communications equipment is more reliable, FAA officials said.

But the union representing air traffic controllers says the practice could compromise safety. Larry Ihlen, a senior engineer, 30-year veteran FAA employee and NATCA Alaska local engineers president, said, "the engineers of the agency have continued to warn management officials that removing the time element between checking the equipment will compromise the safety of the National Airspace System.

"The approach the FAA is taking with its own systems is like saying that you will drive your car across the country without ever checking the oil; it worked yesterday, so it will work tomorrow, unless it quits. Unfortunately, when the agency's equipments quit, the loss of life is a very real possibility," he added.

The FAA has relaxed its own requirements for verifying the operation of the equipment by removing the time element.

NATCA says the U.S. aviation agency plans to relocate 85 percent of all engineers from Alaska to another part of the country, claiming increased efficiency. "So", Ihlen said, "if tragedy happens and a phone call is made to the Alaskan Regional Office for help, there will be a phone ringing on a vacant engineering desk!" And over the past two years, the FAA has allowed the engineering workforce in Alaska to be cut in half.

"In the history of the FAA," Ihlen said, "either a change has been made to the organization or a change has been made to the operation of the National Airspace System (NAS). This is the first time that both changes are being attempted at the same time. If the American public truly understood how the FAA is playing the game of 'find the pea under the shell', they would be outraged. The only stop to this hemorrhage of expertise and compromising of safety will be immediate and direct Congressional action."

Similar FAA attempts to consolidate engineering functions are occurring in New York, Boston, Kansas City, Chicago and Los Angeles.

Regional Vice President and NATCA's national representative for engineers, Mike MacDonald, stated: "With the demands of continued safety of the flying public and the expected work load demands of the near future, the ill-conceived unilateral actions by the FAA across the country against the recommendations of the engineering work force and the purging of FAA's engineering corporate knowledge will lead to an unsafe NAS."

The FAA plans to establish a consolidated engineer location in Atlanta, Dallas and Seattle, costing hundreds of millions of dollars. Decisions for the future of aviation in Alaska have been removed and the engineering expertise associated with the uniqueness of Alaska will soon follow, NATCA charges.