Govt Looks For An Upgrade Only After a Catastrophic Crash

In a stunning display of hindsight, Senators Jeanne Shaheen and John Hoeven have called on the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to address its ongoing staffing shortages. Their plea comes on the heels of last month’s midair collision near Reagan Washington National Airport that left more than 60 people dead.

“Although this incident was horrifying, it was unfortunately not unimaginable,” they wrote. “In recent years, near-misses at airports across the country have increased — and the incident at DCA has been particularly distressing.”

The FAA is currently 3,500 air traffic controllers short of its targeted staffing levels. Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, where the collision took place, is five certified controllers short of its 30-person standard. However, this isn’t exactly breaking news: controller shortages have been an issue for over a decade, with staffing levels down 10% from 2012. Yet it seems that it took a high-profile tragedy for lawmakers to formally acknowledge the crisis.

The accident at hand occurred on January 29, involving a US Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Eagle CRJ-700. Footage shows the helicopter colliding with the side of the jet, which was at approximately 400 ft AGL on final approach to DCA’s runway 33. The aircraft exploded and plummeted into the Potomac River, leaving 67 people dead.

The senators are asking Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to “modernize facilities and equipment, expand the FAA training academy’s capacity, strengthen partnerships with aviation schools across the country and other ways to prevent partisan brinkmanship around government funding from shutting down operations.”

Duffy has also jumped on the post-crash action plan, admitting that the FAA’s technology is outdated and that the agency’s supervisors consolidated key control positions before the collision. In response, he proposed reining in this ability, launching new training initiatives, and pushing back the current mandatory retirement age of 56.

So here we are again: A devastating accident, followed by outrage, followed by calls for action that should have happened years ago. We’ll see how this goes.

FMI: www.faa.gov