Air Traffic Controllers

[pups and bucks]

there is talk of putting 2 air traffic controllers in each tower at the airports so that they can keep each other awake.I think that would be a waste of money to have 2 high dollar earners in the tower at the same time. Should be able to hire someone fairly reasonabley just to annoy the controller enough to keep him.....or her awake......that's my take on it anyway.......

 

[Soapweed]

there is talk of putting 2 air traffic controllers in each tower at the airports so that they can keep each other awake.I think that would be a waste of money to have 2 high dollar earners in the tower at the same time. Should be able to hire someone fairly reasonabley just to annoy the controller enough to keep him.....or her awake......that's my take on it anyway.......

Good point. Even a continually yipping little Chihuahua dog could fulfill the task.

 

[Faster horses]

Ah, but the UNION...you guys are forgetting the UNION. :shock:
They want one more man in each tower to pay Union Dues!!


My thought was they could have a central location(s) staffed
by one or two people to call several towers intermittingly
to make sure the traffic controllers are awake. Then a real
high siren to wake them up if they didn't answer.

 

[katrina]

Have em wear shock collars

 

[Faster horses]

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :tiphat:

 

[Rambo]

Several major accidents in industry have been blamed on "operator fatigue" including the oil rig in the gulf last summer. It is a serious problem. If you want to see what it may be like, try sitting in a room by yourself for 8-12 hours watching the weather radar, no radio, no tv, no phone calls and no reading. See how well you function after the third night or day of doing that. That's what air traffic controllers do.

 

[katrina]

Several major accidents in industry have been blamed on "operator fatigue" including the oil rig in the gulf last summer. It is a serious problem. If you want to see what it may be like, try sitting in a room by yourself for 8-12 hours watching the weather radar, no radio, no tv, no phone calls and no reading. See how well you function after the third night or day of doing that. That's what air traffic controllers do.

Bottom line is.... IF ya can't do the job, you need to be replaced.. Some jobs are boring, but it has to be done..... Either step up to the plate or step aside..

 

[LRAF]

Several major accidents in industry have been blamed on "operator fatigue" including the oil rig in the gulf last summer. It is a serious problem. If you want to see what it may be like, try sitting in a room by yourself for 8-12 hours watching the weather radar, no radio, no tv, no phone calls and no reading. See how well you function after the third night or day of doing that. That's what air traffic controllers do.

Bottom line is.... IF ya can't do the job, you need to be replaced.. Some jobs are boring, but it has to be done..... Either step up to the plate or step aside..

AGREED!!!!!

 

[Rambo]

Several major accidents in industry have been blamed on "operator fatigue" including the oil rig in the gulf last summer. It is a serious problem. If you want to see what it may be like, try sitting in a room by yourself for 8-12 hours watching the weather radar, no radio, no tv, no phone calls and no reading. See how well you function after the third night or day of doing that. That's what air traffic controllers do.

Bottom line is.... IF ya can't do the job, you need to be replaced.. Some jobs are boring, but it has to be done..... Either step up to the plate or step aside..

I don't entirely disagree with your opinion. Just pointing out the job difficulties. I'm not an air traffic controller but do know what it's like to work shift work. Sometimes we don't find out until too late who can't "step up to the plate". We only hope no one gets killed or hurt in the mean time. If adding a person to keep fatal accidents from happening I think it's worth the money. Do you suppose their is a reason the military stresses the buddy system?

 

[katrina]

Several major accidents in industry have been blamed on "operator fatigue" including the oil rig in the gulf last summer. It is a serious problem. If you want to see what it may be like, try sitting in a room by yourself for 8-12 hours watching the weather radar, no radio, no tv, no phone calls and no reading. See how well you function after the third night or day of doing that. That's what air traffic controllers do.

Bottom line is.... IF ya can't do the job, you need to be replaced.. Some jobs are boring, but it has to be done..... Either step up to the plate or step aside..

I don't entirely disagree with your opinion. Just pointing out the job difficulties. I'm not an air traffic controller but do know what it's like to work shift work. Sometimes we don't find out until too late who can't "step up to the plate". We only hope no one gets killed or hurt in the mean time. If adding a person to keep fatal accidents from happening I think it's worth the money. Do you suppose their is a reason the military stresses the buddy system?

That dog won't hunt...
If I can't do my job, you can bet I would be fired.... Not hire someone to babysit me...

 

[gcreekrch]

Why not just shorten the hours?

 

[Larrry]

Kinda like the old sayin, never put two bulls in a pasture cause they will always be fightin. Put three in so two can fight and one can ______

 

[burnt]

There have been a few good solutions offered here and cost effective, too.

Katrina, what good does it do to fire someone after the fact when their dropping off to sleep may have caused a fatal accident, perhaps with a big passenger jet? Wouldn't it be better to greatly reduce the hazard by having that second person or line of defense in place?

I've dozed off a few times while on the job. The worst was when late one night I was trying to finish sowing a river flats field of wheat with water at one end. I woke up when the ride got bumpy as the front tires were just at the water's edge. . . :shock: :shock: :shock: :lol:

As for the air traffic controllers, rather safe than sorry.

 

[hypocritexposer]

Why not just send a TSA agent up to the tower every 30 minutes to give them a poke, prod and a tickle?

WASHINGTON -- The government is changing air traffic controllers' work schedules most likely to cause fatigue following another incident in which a controller fell asleep while on duty, this time at a radar center in Miami, the Federal Aviation Administration said Saturday.

The latest sleeping incident – the fifth to be disclosed by FAA since late March – occurred early Saturday morning at a busy regional facility that handles high-altitude air traffic, FAA said in a statement.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/16/air-traffic-controller-falls-asleep-nap-_n_850088.html

 

[sweetbasil]

Why not just shorten the hours?

That's a great point. Hire two part-time controllers instead of one and dive the salary of one in halves; this way, the attention span/fatigue should be minimal...

 

[Ben H]

Twice in my time in the National Guard I was activated, primarily doing security work. Both activations included working the night shift quite a bit. I had never worked a night shift before graduating college. My time in Iraq was mostly spent in a tower, working a night shift with next to nothing going on for a 12 hours shift is extremely boring. It is especially difficult when you first start doing it or are switching back and forth between day/night. Once I switched to a steady night shift, it became easier. We would have our Sergeant of the Guard coming by a few times a night. He would keep driving a loop to our towers, occasionally the Battalion Commander would show up unexpected. I actually saw the BC more then my CO. We always had two people on duty. The TOC did radio checks every half hour. If somebody missed one, someone was sent out to the tower. With the buddy system, naps often do occur. In my opinion, you do your job much better after a power nap then staring into the darkness for hours.

With the other mission I had state side guarding an Air National Guard base. We were Army National Guard augmenting the Air National Guard Security Forces. We split the 12 hr shift into 2 hour blocks that we rotated through. We'd rotate between Main Gate, Flight Line Patrol, Base Patrol. Some of the State Guards would go find a place to hide and sleep. One of the supervisors, I forget what the Air Farce calls them, flight chief or something, had a bunch of hiding spots he'd go and pass out. If you were to take all employees on a night shift being paid with federal dollars, I bet it would boggle your mind how many hours of labor you're paying someone to sleep.

One of the tactics in Guerrilla warfare is to get an enemy to dedicate as much time and resources as possible to pulling security.

 

[katrina]

There have been a few good solutions offered here and cost effective, too.

Katrina, what good does it do to fire someone after the fact when their dropping off to sleep may have caused a fatal accident, perhaps with a big passenger jet? Wouldn't it be better to greatly reduce the hazard by having that second person or line of defense in place?

I've dozed off a few times while on the job. The worst was when late one night I was trying to finish sowing a river flats field of wheat with water at one end. I woke up when the ride got bumpy as the front tires were just at the water's edge. . . :shock: :shock: :shock: :lol:

As for the air traffic controllers, rather safe than sorry.

It's a job.... If ya can't do it.. Find someone who can... so it's a shitty boring job... Some are.... Somethings you just can't coddle... And I would think that just knowing that your job may hold lives in your hand would be enough motivation to stay awake.... I'm sorry I just don't feel sorry for poeple who can't or won't do their job that needs babysitting..... Burnt I don't see your wheat planting as even a close example.. Sorry...... That's my story and I'm sticking to it. :tiphat:

 

[allen57]

Technology is available...Railroads use it...engineer must interact with the controls periodically or the engine shuts itself down. No brainer to apply to an alarm system in a contol tower to monitor equipment usage. But I guess the unions observe that to be to much employee monitoring? :roll:

 

[MsSage]

Being able to do your job and handling the lag time between are two different things.
I know when we were so very short and only had a picket officer and a Sgt it was very hard to concentrate. When we were doing turn out and staying busy it was easy.
Now we have enough for at least one other person on the floor ....they can switch out with the picket officer and both get a break. Everyone is happier and stress levels are down.
I can feel for controlers I have a very good idea what they deal with, stress, busy, lives in your hands, boring beyond belief, and those on the outside have no clue what you do and deal with.