Experts: Tower audio suggests possible understaffing
Two aviation experts told Newsday that the air traffic controller who gave permission to the firefighting truck to enter the runway may have been handling tasks normally meant for two people.
"Normally, in an operation like this, one controller is working the ground traffic, the vehicles, the taxiing aircraft, [while] another controller is working the arriving and departing aircraft, said Michael McCormick, a former head of the FAA radar facility in Ronkonkoma who has participated in NTSB-led crash investigations.
“And when you listen to the voice tape, it sounds a lot like the same controller is doing both," McCormick said. “That definitely contributes to a workload issue that could be a factor in this."
Harvey Scolnick, who spent about 40 years as an air traffic controller and another decade training controllers, agreed: “The more I listen to the tape, the more it sounds to me like it might have been the same controller” handling both tasks. “It sounds like it's the same voice telling an airplane to go around … as cleared the vehicle across the runway.”
Scolnick said that alternatively, it’s possible there was another controller operating on a different frequency not heard on the recording.
Understaffing of controllers has long been a concern at the FAA. After last year's midair collision between a passenger jet and a military helicopter that killed 67 people near Washington's Reagan National Airport, the NTSB found that controllers' "high workload during a period of elevated traffic" was one of several contributing factors, along with air traffic route design, data sharing and collision avoidance technology shortcomings.
"My first reaction is that this is every bit as concerning and significant as the midair collision a year ago at Washington National," McCormick said.
Scolnick said he’s trained controllers who work at LaGuardia, and “the men and women who work in that tower are unbelievably good.”
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