https://www.foxnews.com/us/staffing...l-tower-not-normal-night-collision-faa-report
Staffing at Reagan Washington National Airport air control tower was 'not normal' on night of collision: FAA
According to a report, the controller who was handling helicopters was also instructing planes that were landing and departing from runways.
Greg Wehner By Greg Wehner Fox News
Published January 30, 2025 5:08pm EST | Updated January 30, 2025 5:30pm EST
An internal preliminary report from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reportedly showed that the number of staff members working at the air control tower at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) in Arlington, Virginia, was "not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic."
On Wednesday night, an American Airlines plane and an Army helicopter collided near Reagan National Airport outside of Washington, D.C., and all 67 people onboard both aircraft are presumed to be dead.
The Associated Press obtained a report which showed one air traffic controller was working two positions at the time of the crash.
Typically, the two assignments are split between two air traffic controllers.
FAA PANEL WARNS THAT CURRENT SAFETY LEVELS ARE ‘UNSUNSTAINABLE’
A general view of Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Virginia
A general view of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, on Thursday. An American Airlines flight from Wichita, Kansas, collided with a Black Hawk helicopter while approaching the airport for landing on Wednesday night. (Leigh Green for Fox News Digital)
"The position configuration was not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic," the report says.
Despite the report saying the staffing was "not normal," a person familiar with the matter told Fox News Digital that staffing in the control tower at DCA on Wednesday night was at a normal level.
The person explained that the positions get combined regularly if air controllers have to step away from the console for breaks, or if they are involved in a shift change. Controllers may also have to step away when air traffic is slow, the person explained, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal procedures.
Supervisors have the ability to combine roles, which was the case on Wednesday night, though the person familiar with the matter could not say why. When asked about the air traffic and previous reports of it being heavy on Wednesday night, the source said it was moderate.
The air control tower at Reagan National has been understaffed for years with 19 fully certified controllers as of September 2023. However, staffing targets set by the FAA and the controllers’ union call for 30.
The FAA’s air traffic controller shortage is nothing new at Reagan National or most of the country’s air traffic control facilities.
Last year, Frontier Airlines CEO Barry Biffle appeared on FOX Business Network’s "The Claman Countdown" and warned that shortages could cause issues during the summer season if they were not addressed.
Biffle explained that while technology could help address the issue while promoting greater efficiencies in air travel over the longer term, the air traffic controller shortage contributes to delays and cancelations.
"There's opportunities to improve the technology that is kind of the backbone of air traffic control," Biffle said. "If you look to Europe, for example, there are some opportunities that we could adopt here that would be much more efficient — you'd burn a lot less fuel, get there faster and so forth. That is a big opportunity."
"At the same time, it doesn't negate the issue that I think we're 3,000 controllers short right now. And so that just causes, when you have a weather event, it just causes there to be more delays," he explained. "And ultimately, like we've seen the last few days, those delays then turn into cancelations because crews time out and so forth. would really like to see the staffing get fixed. The technology is probably a longer solution."
The FAA's National Airspace System (NAS) safety review team created in April 2023 following several close runway incursions during takeoffs or landings at busy airports, determined that year that the concurrence of several challenges such as the air traffic control staffing crunch, insufficient funding and outdated technology "results in an erosion of safety margins that must be urgently addressed."
"The current erosion in the margin of safety in the NAS caused by the confluence of these challenges is rendering the current level of safety unsustainable," the team's report said.
