Says Operational Errors Should Not Be Tied To Staffing Numbers

On Saturday, ANN published statements made by the National Air Traffic Controllers Association regarding the situation at the Southern California Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON.) NATCA reported five operational errors occurred at that facility -- the busiest in the nation -- in less than two weeks, including three that happened in a span of four days. As a result, local Federal Aviation Administration management officials suspended all training of new controllers for three days to assess the facility’s training and staffing situation.

NATCA SCT Facility Representative Steve Merlin blamed the errors on "fatigue and a loss of focus" due to mandatory six-day work weeks, caused by the shortage of qualified controllers at SCT -- an ongoing complaint from the union. Merlin also says controllers are burning out from the constant need to train new personnel.

FAA spokesman Ian Gregor tells ANN that "NATCA isn't telling you the entire story," however. "Southern California TRACON is staffed within its authorized level of 186 to 228 controllers," Gregor told ANN Monday. "We currently have 194 certified controllers on board, plus 33 trainees. We're expecting to get 10 more trainees by the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.  We have enough controllers to safely and efficiently run all of the sectors in SCT airspace.

"Training new controllers can be challenging, but it's part of a certified controller's job duties," the spokesman continues. "The FAA recognizes that we're going to lose most of our controller workforce nationwide to retirement during the next 10 years, and we are aggressively hiring replacements. Hence the high number of trainees at SCT. The simple truth is that we have to bring a lot of new controllers on board to replace those who are retiring.

"We did have 5 operational errors in a short period of time recently," Gregor concedes. "What NATCA isn't telling you is that before that, we had only 9 operational errors dating back to Oct. 1, 2006, which is the start of the federal fiscal year. That was a very low number compared to previous years. We did not determine any common cause to any of the recent OEs. Four were committed by certified controllers and one by a developmental. They occurred in different sectors.

Gregor asserts there is no historical correlation between staffing levels and OEs, based on numbers recorded over the past eight years. In fiscal year 2000, for example, Gregor said SCT had around 270 controllers -- and recorded 18 operational errors. That number fluctuated through the years, peaking at 22 OEs in FY2006. So far, 14 incidents have occurred in FY2007, 10.5 months through the fiscal year.

"We did stand down training for 72 hours following the recent spate of errors," Gregor said. "This is not unusual. We do this for two weeks every October to give everyone a break from training, and we do it if unusual events occur -- such as a string of controller errors. It's the prudent thing to do.

"Temporarily halting training also allows certified controllers to resume working airplanes instead of just supervising trainees," Gregor concludes. "It also lets trainees work live traffic in sectors on which they are certified."

FMI: www.faa.gov, www.natca.org