Says Comair Crash "Must Be A Wakeup Call"

New York Senator Chuck Schumer says Sunday's crash of a Comair regional jet in Kentucky should serve as a warning nationwide.

"Air traffic controllers exist for a reason: to ensure that the planes taking off and landing are doing so safely," the New York Democrat wrote in a letter to FAA Administrator Marion Blakey. "Sadly, the FAA continues to short-staff control towers in an effort to control costs while they eschew safety."

"This tragedy must be a wakeup call for the FAA to reexamine its policy and make sure that airports have the controllers they need," Schumer added, according to the New York Daily News.

How does the FAA respond to Schumer's statements? Spokeswoman Laura Brown says the agency go that wake-up call a long time ago... and is now working on a hiring plan that will carry the FAA into the next decade.

"Our goal is to staff to traffic [levels] as efficiently as possible," she said.

During its investigation into the Comair crash at Lexington, the NTSB found... not only did the FAA violate its own policy by staffing the Blue Grass Tower with just one controller on the overnight shift, but that one controller had only two hours' sleep before he went to work Saturday night.

That controller, a 17-year veteran of the Blue Grass tower, had worked earlier on Saturday... from 6:30 in the morning until 2:30 in the afternoon. He was back in the tower at 11:30 Saturday night.

The NTSB is wrapping up its investigation on the ground at Blue Grass Airport in Lexington. But board member Debra Hersman promises investigators will not only look into staffing practices in Lexington. She says the NTSB will look system-wide at the number of controllers available... and the amount of rest they get between shifts.

FMI: www.faa.gov, www.senate.gov/~schumer/