The following includes editorial content that is the opinion of the writer.
HOUSTON, TX- For anyone who pays attention to the aviation industry, a phenomenon that has occurred over the past year or so has become increasingly concerning. That series of events involves the number of close calls and near misses that have taken place in the skies and on the runways at our nation’s airports. It has seemingly become nearly a weekly occurrence, and seems only a matter of time before it costs hundreds of lives.
Revolver News published a piece this week outlining the recent collision between two private jets at Houston Hobby Airport late last month. If the aircraft had been any closer, it would have ended with several dead and lives destroyed.
In the Houston incident, the two jets collided on the runway in what appears to be a case of pilot error. In this case, KHOU reports that one jet was landing and the other taking off at around 3:20 p.m. on Oct. 24. The two aircraft collided where two runways intersect. No injuries were reported. However, one aircraft received minor damage, while the second received “significant” damage. One plane had three souls on board, the other four.
According to a preliminary report from the NTSB, a Raytheon Hawker 850XP was taking off, heading to Waukesha, Wisconsin. That aircraft hit a Textron Aviation Citation Jet that landed after a flight from Atlanta.
The Hawker was taking off on Runway 22, while the Cessna Citation was landing on a crossing runway, 13R (right). The left wing of the Hawker struck the vertical stabilizer (tail) of the Citation.
According to audio of the incident, the pilot of the Hawker was told by ATC to line up and wait before taking off. It does not appear that he got takeoff clearance. The pilot told investigators in a post-crash interview that he believed they had been cleared for departure. The Hawker actually was able to take off but safely landed shortly after that.
Just before the incident, the air traffic controller noticed the Hawker moving and directed them to stop. The crew did not respond to two alerts to stop and hold their position. They told investigators they didn’t see the Citation until about 1 second before impact, too late to avoid a collision.
The Houston incident is the latest in a series of near misses across the U.S. Earlier this summer, the New York Times published an investigation into “an alarming pattern of safety lapses and near misses in the skies and runways of the USA.”
Internal FAA records reviewed by the Times showed these incidents occurred exclusively as a “result of human error.” Worse yet, the number of “runway incursions,” such as the Houston incident, had nearly doubled from 987 to 1732 despite the availability of advanced technologies to avoid such incidents.
One airport identified in a follow-up Times report as being particularly dangerous is the one in Austin, Texas, which has had so many close calls that one pilot said, “They’re trying to kill us in Austin.”
For example, a near disaster occurred between a FedEx cargo plane and a Southwest Airlines passenger jet earlier this year. The FedEx was on a three-mile final to runway 18L when the Southwest aircraft was cleared for takeoff on the same runway. The FedEx pilot even contacted ATC to confirm they were cleared to land and was told the Southwest Boeing 737 would depart before their arrival.
The FedEx aircraft, a Boeing 767, much faster and larger than the Southwest aircraft, began to overtake Southwest. The tower attempted to abort Southwest’s takeoff, but it was too late. Fortunately, the FedEx pilot had the wherewithal to go around, avoiding disaster. Reports were that the FedEx plane was only 100 feet above the Southwest 737, with 128 passengers and six crew on board. It was a cloudy day, and visibility was low.
One might think that such an incident would result in severe discipline against the controller, who put the passengers and crew of the Southwest aircraft and the two pilots on the FedEx cargo plane at such peril. However, that isn’t the case.
Revolver reported the controller who made the blunder was a man named Damian Campbell, described as “a Navy veteran and self-published poet.” The NTSB report described Campbell’s fellow air traffic controllers as “baffled” by his actions that day. Unbelievably, Campbell is back on the job, the Times wrote, noting the FAA’s policy is not to seek discipline against a controller unless they are guilty of “gross negligence” or illegal activity.
While the New York Times did not publish a picture of Campbell, Revolver News did obtain his photo from his now-deleted LinkedIn page. Revolver was able to match up the LinkedIn profile to the Austin controller. Campbell is an affirmative action or diversity hire, which by itself is not important. What is important, Revolver News found, is what they described as a “catastrophic collapse in the quality of controllers” resulting from policies implemented under the Obama administration.
In August, at Boston’s Logan International Airport, a JetBlue passenger jet landing nearly hit a Learjet operated by a charter service that crossed the runway before them. The captain of the JetBlue Embraer estimated they were about 30 feet off the ground when he and the first officer saw the plane cross in front of them. They aborted the landing and went around where they safely landed.
At the same airport in September, a United Airlines passenger jet had to perform a “go around” because a prior arrival was still on the runway, Boston 25 News reported. In a recording obtained by the outlet, the air traffic controller apologized to the United Airlines flight crew, saying, “Sorry about that. An aircraft was still on the runway.”
That was less than a month after an American Airlines and a Spirit Airlines plane were nearly involved in a collision, also at Logan.
In an in-depth study of the number of near misses over the past several years, Revolver News attributed it to two factors–the collapse mentioned above in controller quality–and COVID-era policies implemented by the Biden administration, which led to many seasoned air traffic controllers being terminated for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccination. That has led to a staffing shortage in ATC control rooms across the US.
For example, Jacksonville Center in Florida–one of the country's busiest ATC facilities–has suffered from staff shortages for some time, resulting in occasional “flow” stoppages across the southern US.
The air traffic control issues are also the result of decades-old technology in air traffic control centers, a failure to maintain the infrastructure needed for a 21st-century air traffic control scenario. Revolver News first reported on the failure of the United States to support our vital infrastructure when speaking of repeated failures of the Texas electric grid.
They reported at the time:
“The mess with the Texas power grid is only the beginning. In the years to come, American infrastructure will fail more and more often, as America becomes less capable of maintaining the core elements of a First World country.”
To understand the depth of the problem, it is essential to understand what precisely a runway incursion or Near Midair Collision (NMAC) is. According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), an NMAC occurs “when two aircraft are within 500 feet of one another.” With passenger aircraft traveling upwards of 575 miles per hour, if flying in opposite directions, they would contact each other in the literal blink of an eye–0.29 seconds.
Fortunately, commercial aircraft and even some private planes have TCAS–Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance Systems. It is an airborne system installed on aircraft. If TCAS detects a possible collision, it notifies the crews of each affected aircraft to descend or climb to avoid a mid-air collision. Still, the system is not 100% foolproof.
Loss of Separation, the so-called close call metric for midair collisions, is “loss of the minimum horizontal and/or vertical distance between two planes in flight.” The standard is that an aircraft should have 15 minutes or three nautical miles between itself and a plane either ahead or behind; there must be a 1,000-foot gap between an aircraft and one either above or below; bad weather or turbulence may increase those minimums.
Loss of separation events, however, also serves as a convenient way to blow off the increase in so-called “close calls.” For example, if two aircraft are 2.99 miles apart and not 3, it qualifies as a “close call.” Such incidents are typically used as examples to show the flying public that it was only “1/100th of a mile” too close.
The use of TCAS to avoid collisions has often proven to be a way to bail out incompetent controllers or pilots. As Revolver News reports, “After a collision is narrowly avoided, many media relations experts will hail the success of TCAS and diminish anyone expressing concern.” That is a factor cited by some senior ATCs Revolver spoke with, noting TCAS has allowed ATCs with poor memory and insufficient skills to seem capable.
“They compare what’s happened to ATCs with the ‘Google Effect,’ whereby people refuse to learn necessary information because they can simply look it up. This may be trivial for day-to-day work, but it is existential for air safety.”
Some “experts” claim the increase in close calls is due to the fact there has been a significant increase in the number of flights. According to data collected by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, in 2002, there were 9.1 million flights by US and foreign carriers in our country. That number fluctuated between nine and eleven million until 2020 when COVID struck. The number dropped to 5.7 million and rebounded to 8.7 million flights in 2022. In other words, we are seeing far more close calls despite (somewhat) better technology and fewer flights.
The “experts” also cite the fact there hasn’t been a fatal commercial aircraft accident in the US since 2009 outside of Buffalo, N.Y., where 49 people were killed. That is actually great news, but it is likely more a matter of luck than anything else. Since 2009, there have been over 300 near-collisions, more than double the prior decade. Things have not improved on airport property either, with one headline reading ten years ago, “Tarmac trouble: U.S. runway close calls soar.” Things have not improved.
Most near misses, however, do not occur midair but rather closer to the ground during takeoff and landing. A majority of those are runway incursions, which occur when two aircraft are too close to one another or, as in the Austin case when one plane is landing while another is taking off. Sometimes, it could be a situation where a vehicle is on the runway, such as a service or emergency vehicle.
Between 2002 and 2022, runway incursions increased from 987 to 1732 despite the availability of advanced technology.
Revolver News contacted the FAA about the apparent safety issue concerning near misses; however, the agency refused to comment. They noted FAA Public Relations Specialist Crystal Essiaw basically evaded all their questions. So instead, they took their questions to those who know it best–actual air traffic controllers, and they didn’t hold back.
They identified two issues–staffing (or lack thereof) and incompetence.
The staffing issue is often blamed on President Ronald Reagan’s firing of 11,345 air traffic controllers who struck illegally, and their union, PATCO, was decertified. Despite blaming Reagan for the issue, by the 1990s, air traffic control towers and facilities were fully staffed.
Many factors since then have contributed to the current shortage of controllers, according to Dr. Mike McCormick, who previously served as Vice President of the Air Traffic Organization, the operational arm of the FAA.
He attributed several government shutdowns during the past decade, which stopped the FAA from hiring or training controllers, which led to staffing shortages. He also noted that when the government does shut down, controllers still have to work without pay, which impacts morale and, in some cases, speeds up retirements.
He also blamed COVID when the FAA ceased hiring and training. He conveniently didn’t mention it, but controllers were also forced to accept the vaccine, which many refused, thereby losing their jobs. He claimed laughably that “the number [was] so small that it had little to no impact.”
He noted it takes 3-5 years to hire and train new controllers, and despite the agency being expected to hire 1,800 controllers in each of the next three years, it will take some time to recover staffing levels.
Controllers' concerns over the vaccines cannot be dismissed because they were a tremendous concern within the aviation industry, especially among pilots. American Airlines told NPR, for example, that 40% of its pilots were holding off on getting the vaccine due to health concerns. When Southwest Airlines informed pilots of a vaccine mandate, 2,000 flights were canceled due to “technology” issues. Read into that what you may.
In response, the FAA tweeted, "[n]one of the information from Southwest, its pilots union, or the FAA indicates that this weekend’s cancellations were related to vaccine mandates.”
Then, there is the issue of a need for more competency of air traffic controllers. Revolver noted that “the aggressive substitution of merit in favor of diversity has led to a so-called competency crisis, jeoparding not only our ability to generate innovative technology but, in a more dire sense, our ability to simply maintain the proper functioning of various complex systems vital to our existence as a first world civilization.”
Indeed, the airline industry has made a point of telling the public ad nauseam of its efforts to “diversify” its employee group, particularly pilots. The federal government also has made a point of checking the right box instead of qualifications. Air traffic controllers are no different.
Getting hired as an air traffic controller used to be an arduous and very competitive endeavor. However, the push toward DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) includes addressing so-called “disparate impact,” which simply means that any vetting mechanism used to screen applicants, such as standardized testing, is considered “presumptively discriminatory and illegal” if some races or demographics perform worse than others.
The so-called “Griggs decision” set the standard for disparate impact. It involves Duke Power Company in North Carolina, which had certain positions requiring a high school diploma or someone who could perform sufficiently well on one of two tests.
There was zero racial component to the process. However, the court held the tests were illegal “because blacks were less likely to hold a high school diploma and were less likely to perform well on tests.” That in itself seems racist, but we digress.
New hiring policies implemented by the Obama administration have a connection to the decline of Air Traffic Control quality. In 2012, the FAA released an unclassified report titled “Development, Validation, and Fairness of Biographical Data Questionnaire for the Air Traffic Control Specialist Occupation.” That report recommended using biographical data, or “biodata”--personal information about applicants–instead of the blind method of measuring competency to promote racial equality. One of the key findings was:
“From a test fairness perspective, biodata yielded nearly identical mean scores across gender and ethnicity scores that were well below differences typically found for tests of general mental ability.”
The report was co-authored by a woke professor of Human Resource Management at San Diego State University, Dr. Michell Dean. In her doctoral dissertation, she focused on the use of biodata to cover up differences in performance among ethnic groups:
“Organizations are faced with the dilemma that general cognitive ability tests predict job performance while exhibiting adverse impact on racial and ethnic minority groups. Adverse impact occurs if a test causes employers to reject a larger portion of minority than majority applicants. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has made clear that when conducting validation studies, employers should consider available alternatives which will achieve their legitimate business purpose with lesser adverse impact.
The so-called “money shot” reported by Revolver:
“As the workforce continues to become more diverse, organizations are more likely to face tradeoffs between maximizing validity versus maximizing organizational diversity. The continued concern that cognitive ability tests unfairly screen out minorities from selection consideration (Gottfredson, 1986) coupled with increasing workforce diversity has made alternative prediction techniques, with less adverse impact, such as biodata, more attractive.”
In other words, it isn’t about attracting the best to be air traffic controllers…it’s about selecting the right demographic, qualifications, and cognitive abilities be damned.
As expected, Dr. McCormick had a fast answer on the impact of such decisions on air traffic controllers' quality. He said, "the Air Traffic-Skills Assessment Test (AT-SAT) was stopped because the test questions became corrupted due to leaks.”
So he’s claiming an aptitude test was scrapped because the test questions were “corrupted?” Isn’t it possible to merely change the questions?
It is clear the method for screening applicants was changed from an assessment test to a Behavioral Analysis to get more minority applicants. Period.
According to Revolver, the change in hiring practice screwed over some 3,000 applicants desiring to become controllers because they didn’t fit the right demographic profile preferred by the FAA and the Obama administration. The change let one student, Andrew Brigda, to file a class action lawsuit against the FAA.
Brigda spent some $40,000 and four years on his degree, attained the highest possible score on the FAA’s aptitude test, and found himself unable to get through the door.
Despite the spate of close calls at our nation’s airports and in the skies, McCormick insists the air traffic control workforce has no issues. He claims today’s controllers have college and university experience, are more adept at technology than their predecessors, have experience playing video games [he really said that], and can multi-task.
One ATC instructor told Revolver:
“The FAA has been dummied down to bring less qualified candidates into the trade. There are no consequences for failing to perform your job, not even a slap on the wrist.”
Yet another senior controller told Revolver that accountability had become so bad that “[f]or the last several years, a loss of separation won’t even get you the rest of the day off,” adding, “From what I was seeing before I left, it was a total nothing and often just expedited the path to management.”
Finally, the federal government must invest more in improving runway safety through technology.
“One problem is that despite repeated recommendations from safety authorities, the vast majority of U.S. airports have not installed warning systems to help prevent collisions on runways,” the New York Times report read.
Citing an FAA spokesman, the Times wrote:
“Mr. Lehner said the FAAS lacked the funding to install more runway warning systems. But he said the agency was taking other steps to improve safety, including by upgrading taxiways and runways and hiring more air traffic controllers.”
Funding is an interesting problem because there is money to hire 85,000 IRS agents that might come in handy to help save lives instead of harassing the middle class—just a thought.
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