Courtesy Paramount
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This is your Captain speaking…
Two airliners landed at Reagan National Airport near Washington without control tower clearance because the air traffic supervisor was asleep, safety and aviation officials said Wednesday.
The supervisor — the only controller scheduled for duty in the tower around midnight Tuesday when incident occurred — had fallen asleep, said an aviation official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the incident.
The National Transportation Safety Board is gathering information on the occurrence to decide whether to open a formal investigation, board spokesman Peter Knudson said.
“I’m not sure that in all the years I’ve been flying airplanes that I can recall coming into a major airport and I couldn’t get hold of a controller in the airport tower,” said aviation safety consultant John Cox.
There’s nothing in the FARs (Federal aviation regulations) to cover this situation. Controllers at other facilities can advise but not provide landing clearance. The pilots were on their own. It’s a good bet they won’t be hassled for landing without clearance.
@39 Pedro last time I flew SW the pilots were male, as were the flight attendants (at least looked male), so EEEEEEWWWWWWWWW thanks a lot.
What’s the big deal? Lots of operations take place at airports with towers that have closed for the night. Not the first controller that has ever fallen asleep, and won’t be the last.
# 28 bobbo said – “I canceled by Mom’s Monday Morning surgery and had it reset to Wednesday Mid Morning.”
My mother is now two month post-op and I too insisted the surgery be moved from Monday morning. But statistics say Tuesday morning first slot has the best outcome.
So Animby–combining our encyclopedic knowledge of health care, airline operations, social institutions, and human behavior–would you cancel your red-eye flight and demand one that landed Tuesday in the AM?
I recall falling asleep, when I shouldn’t have, once. Only once. Unbelievably, it was on climb out departure leg going thru 8000 feet. Ha, ha. Thank goodness I was “only” the co-pilot.
It was coming back from the first time I had flown to Rio de Janiero. After a 30 hour day thru Panama and points north, we had 12 hours in Rio. I spent some 50 hours awake not wanting to miss Ipanema Beach. Only time there until years later I spent a month during Mardi Gras. I’m sure it wasn’t the beer and wine I drank but rather the 12 oz steak.
I think I could have pulled it off if it weren’t for a bad wake up call that started the trip 3 days earlier. Yes, I blame the steak.
Well, you’re piloting experience is vastly greater than mine, I have only a single engine land license and around a thousand hours. BUt, I think I would not want that plane that lands Tuesday AM. I would shoot for the one that DEPARTS Tuesday AM .. if the pilot is a physician.
#40->”So you’re saying cost trumps safety?”
What safety? Two people can just as easily fall asleep as one. Happens to pilots all the time, overflying destinations, flying drunk, etc.
It all comes down to personal responsibility. You either treat them like adults or you fire them.
“Well hell than, it only takes one person to fly the plane. I mean it is only one plane, why have two pilots?”
If a controller falls asleep, the tower doesn’t crash. But the pilot can still land the airplane if he does.
G2,
It’s called redundancy of critical systems. Cost is important only to those who do not rely on the systems in question. Lobbyists, corporate executives, and legislators don’t usually fly commercial.
Animby—you know who has the greatest accident rates in private flying? Physicians. Seems they think they can make things happen thru their own powerful will to do so. Egotism seems to be more antithetical to safe flying than ignorance and bad luck. Ha, ha.
Hardest maneuver in aeronautics: a level 180 degree turn back to home base.
Flying is a pinnacle human experience–learning to be responsible in an environment that acts against you for mistakes. Scuba is much the same: three dimensions of unforgiving consequences that can’t be bought off by envy or money.
Yea, verily.
Two things:
1) It’s National Airport, never Reagan anything to anyone who cares.
2) Good Job doofus! I guess it goes to show that Reagan breaking that union really helped a whole lot – NOT!
#47->There was redundancy. Regional directed them in. And there was a tertiary element as well – the pilots.
I am just shocked at the number of people who want to let this guy off for sleeping on the job. And make no mistake — he was not just dozing. He was in a dead sleep. The phone didn’t even wake him up.
As a supervisor with 17 years of experience, he should have realized he was in no condition to stand that watch. Would he have let one of his subordinates stand watch if they were that tired?
I have no problem with him being fired for sleeping. I have a major problem with only one person in the tower.
And a lot of them upgrade to high performance aircraft without the instruction needed to handle them well in tight IFR conditions. The venerable Beech Bonanza V-35 V tail has ended up scattered about many times, a favorite doctor airplane. I won’t fly with one surgeon who tried to climb a Queen Air out on takeoff with the critical engine gone at 100 ft.
KD–we shouldn’t beat up on Animby “too much” even though he is never wrong and never makes a mistake. I guess that still leaves room for acts of God?
I came within a nat’s whisker of flying a Beech around South America–down the West Coast, back up the East Coast. Did the flight planning and 3 of us had the money. Then the Shining Path in Peru, and somebody else in Mexico and Panama seemed to like just taking private aircraft, especially the Beech away from rich tourists. I think the single was the craft of choice for drug smuggling at the time. Anyway, our insurance carrier backed out and we all got cold feet.
Which is the critical engine in a single engine aircraft and how do you climb out when it is gone?
Bubba Ray and I had quite a kerfuffle over a very similar situation about 8 months ago? It all proved that any landing you walk away from is a good one.
Bobbo,
Yeah, old BubbaRay is a good pilot and has almost as many aerobatic hours. Haven’t seen him in awhile but I talked with him the other day.
The engine with the down-moving blades towards the wingtip produces more yaw and roll than the other engine, because the moment arm of that engine’s thrust about the aircraft center of gravity is greater. So the engine with down-moving blades towards the fuselage is “critical”, because its failure requires a larger rudder deflection to maintain straight flight. And more rudder = more drag.
Since most engines in the U.S turn the prop clockwise as seen from the rear, the left engine is the critical one. I think counter rotating prop planes have no critical engine.
That’s why I like the Cessna 310, it’s one of very few aircraft that can maintain a positive rate of climb with an engine out when fully loaded on a hot day with a high density altitude. The Queen Air won’t climb well if at all engine out. Best way to climb out is suck up the gear, leave the flaps, feather the dead engine (in that order) and pray.
#51->It sounds like a catch-22 to me.
If you expect him to stay awake, there is no need for a second operator at this tower. Airport loading determined long ago that two operators brought nothing to the table.
If you do expect him to fall asleep, then you do need a second one and can’t blame him for falling asleep.
I just read another piece where TRACON tried to contact him through loudspeaker in the tower and THAT didn’t wake him up. I wonder if he was even in the tower . . .
#50 Remember, like sheeple Dallas says: it’s the corporation’s fault, not the bozo who fell asleep nor the supervisor who put him there.
#55 Not a catch 22 at all. We know now that he was sleeping. What if had pulled george w and choked on a pretzel, fell down the stairs on the way to take leak, heart attack, stroke, hell having phone sex with his sister. I don’t give a damn what. There should have been two in the tower.
#57->I’m still not certain why you feel that way considering the loading of that particular airport so we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
#58 If you fail to understand the concepts of redundancy and safety. Then your right we will disagree.
#59->I do understand redundancy. That is what the regional ATC is for. And then you have the pilots acting as backups to them.
I agree that a second controller would make it safer. But is it economically feasible to add a second controller? It’s a feel-good measure only and will do nothing to reduce accidents in the grand scheme of things. One extra controller to handle 5 flights is overkill. Note they are ONLY handling flights to and from that airport — not any surrounding areas.
37,000 people die each year due to car accidents vs the couple hundred due to aircraft accidents. Shouldn’t we worry about the car accidents first? Following your logic, we should put dual controls in all cars and require a second driver.