Reduced Staffing Meant Only One Tech On Duty, Instead Of Two

Why did air traffic controllers lose radar coverage over southern California last summer?

Technicians at the Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC)in Palmdale say equipment problems that caused the traffic delays weren't their fault. They told the Associated Press the FAA reduced staffing at the center from two technicians to one, forcing them to postpone maintenance on backup equipment which would have prevented the foul-up.

"It does take us longer to do the maintenance because of the lack of staffing," said Tony Gilmore, a technician and union representative at Palmdale ARTCC, which handles high-altitude flights over Southern California and much of Nevada and Arizona.

FAA officials deny those claims, with Administrator Marion Blakey saying it was "a remarkable piece of bad luck" that led to the outage at Palmdale, and an unrelated problem with the ILS at Los Angeles International three weeks later.

"All you can do is focus intently to address each and every one of them," Blakey told the Los Angeles Times. "It's not as though this points to a bigger problem."

The FAA has spent a great deal of time lately fielding questions about staffing and equipment upgrades. Members of congress questioned the FAA about staffing following the tragedy in Lexington this summer. They wondered if another controller on duty might have prevented Comair flight 5191 from attempting takeoff from the wrong runway.

Representatives of the Professional Airways Systems Specialists -- the union representing FAA technicians -- say the FAA is so worried about upgrading... it isn't properly maintaining equipment currently in use.

"There's so much pressure on them to show that they're modernizing the system to increase capacity that they're marginalizing the importance of keeping the infrastructure they have now," said PASS vice-president Ray Baggett.

Logs kept at Palmdale corroborate the technician's claims of deferring maintenance. And the FAA has since replaced the failed component which caused all the trouble... at Palmdale, as well as other facilities that use the same equipment.

Meanwhile, the FAA said it is continuing its investigation into the matter... while also developing an long-term plan to make the system better prepared to handle power surges -- the malady that turned the lights out in Palmdale last July.

FMI: www.faa.gov