Air traffic controller strain, staffing highlighted by crash, experts say

As the National Transportation Safety Board begins to study the LaGuardia Airport crash that killed two pilots and injured dozens, experts said investigators will likely be looking into the role of human error, along with visibility due to rain and the persistent strain placed on understaffed air traffic controllers.

A harrowing recording of radio communications between the control tower and trucks captured apparent confusion before and after the jet struck a Port Authority firefighting and rescue truck late Sunday night.

The truck was responding to another plane that had reported a suspicious odor sickening the crew. Before the crash happened, an air traffic controller granted permission for the truck to cross the runway — only to retract it seconds later: "Stop truck 1, stop! Stop truck 1, stop!"

A beeping alert goes off before there are a few seconds of silence. The controller said, "Jazz 646. I saw you collide with [the] vehicle. ... I know you can't move. Vehicles are responding to you now."

Later, the unnamed controller said: "I messed up."

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who visited the crash site Monday, said at a news conference that the NTSB investigation may take many months, if not up to a year.

Michael McCormick, a former head of the Federal Aviation Administration radar facility in Ronkonkoma who now teaches at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's Florida campus, said the air traffic controller seemed to make a mistake, but wondered if he was overstretched, given that he seemed to be handling tasks usually divided between 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. ... And when you listen to the voice tape, it sounds a lot like the same controller is doing both," he said.

Duffy declined to say whether the staffing Sunday night was satisfactory but noted, "LaGuardia is a well-staffed airport" and said reports there was only one air traffic controller working when the crash occurred at LaGuardia Airport are "inaccurate." LaGuardia has 33 certified air traffic controllers, another seven are in training, and the goal is to have 37 air traffic controllers, he said.

NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy at a news conference said she could not release information about controller staffing or any other possible causes on Monday.

William Waldock, who teaches aircraft accident investigation and crash management at Embry-Riddle’s Arizona campus, said that in all his years’ experience, he’d only heard of one other instance of an aircraft hitting an airport fire truck — in Lima, Peru, a few years ago.

Waldock noted that LaGuardia is one of just a few dozen airports outfitted with a system called Airport Surface Detection Equipment, Model X (ASDE-X), which provides controllers a feed of where all vehicles and aircraft are located by combining ground-based radar and motion detectors with data from transponders inside aircraft.

"Whether they were using it or not actively at that point in time, I don’t know," he said, adding that the weather may have played a role.

"Depending on how much ground lighting there was in the area where the collision occurred ... if it was raining pretty hard, that makes it a little more difficult to see visually from the tower," Waldock said.

John Cox, a former professional pilot who works as a consultant and accident investigator, said LaGuardia is a "very congested airspace" due to its heavy traffic and small size — but he never felt unsafe flying there.

"The controllers are very good, and so [traffic] flows well regardless of weather," he said.

Harvey Scolnick, a Pennsylvania-based expert who worked as a controller for 40 years before training others, agreed with McCormick’s assessment that the controller was probably handling both ground control duties and takeoffs and landings. That’s not ideal but it is often done during less-busy shifts, he said.

Scolnick said he is hearing from current controllers that "morale is very low" because of mandatory six-day weeks and 10-hour days. Some feel as if they are constantly being judged, he said, as the internet has enabled aviation enthusiasts to share recordings of anything they say on websites like LiveATC.net.

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.

In its most recent workforce report, the FAA forecast increasing its head count of controllers and trainees by 169 in 2025, or about 1.4%, but McCormick said the agency is "months if not years" from having adequate staffing.

Air traffic controllers are still being paid despite the partial government shutdown, which has resulted in longer-than-normal wait times at airports across the country as some 50,000 employees of the Transportation Security Administration work without pay.

The controllers’ union said it could not comment on the crash or "adjacent issues," pending the NTSB investigation.

By Peter Gill

peter.gill@newsday.com