US air traffic chief quits over sleeping controllers

The direct of the Air Traffic Organisation Hank Krakowski has stepped down after five controllers in the last few weeks were found apparently sleeping on duty.

Randy Babbitt, the head of the ATO’s parent body the Federal Aviation Administration, accepted Krakowski’s resignation and promised a full review.

“Over the last few weeks we have seen examples of unprofessional conduct on the part of a few individuals that have rightly caused the traveling public to question our ability to ensure their safety,” Babbitt said in a statement.

“This conduct must stop immediately. I am committed to maintaining the highest level of public confidence and that begins with strong leadership,” he said.

On Tuesday a controller at Reno-Tahoe International Airport in Nevada fell asleep while a medical flight carrying an ill patient was trying to land.

That flight, in communication with the Northern California Terminal Radar Approach Control, eventually was able to land safely, but without the aid of a controller.

The day before, the FAA suspended an air traffic controller at Boeing Field in Seattle for falling asleep during his morning shift.

Last month the FAA suspended two workers for a March 29 incident in Lubbock, Texas, in which controllers failed to appropriately hand off control of a departing aircraft to the Fort Worth Air Route Traffic Control Center.

And in an incident the previous week, US aviation authorities suspended an air traffic controller suspected of falling asleep on the job and forcing two planes to land without guidance at Washington’s Reagan National airport.

“I am totally outraged by these incidents,” US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a recent statement as the number of similar incidents climbed.

“The American public trusts us to run a safe system,” he said.

The recent events involving controllers sleeping on the job and a near collision in January involving an American Airlines jumbo jet carrying 259 people and a pair of 200-ton military cargo jets over New York have increased concern about air safety.

Recorded errors by air traffic controllers increased last year by 51 percent across the US.

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