Staffing Shortage Forced 90 Minute Shutdown

Another control tower had to close briefly last week, due to what the National Air Traffic Controllers Association terms a staffing shortage. The union tells ANN the Federal Aviation Administration was forced to close the air traffic control tower at Yeager Airport in Charleston, WV (CRW), for 90 minutes May 11, because it did not have enough controllers to staff the evening shift at the 24-hour facility.

NATCA says during the first hour the tower was closed, there were 18 aircraft that taxied, landed, and departed the airport. Of the 18, nine were air taxis, eight were general aviation and one was a Lifeguard Healthnet Helicopter.

“The pilots were expecting the tower to be open, with air traffic controllers guiding them safely in and out of this airport,” said Jim Ennis, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association’s facility representative at the Charleston tower and terminal radar approach control facility (TRACON). “This was an extremely unsafe situation.”

NATCA states almost every shift at CRW is scheduled with less than the minimum amount of controllers needed to perform the necessary duties. On Friday, Ennis was scheduled to work the evening shift with three other controllers. The shifts require at least five controllers to provide a safe and expeditious flow of traffic, as FAA orders require.

One of the scheduled controllers was forced to call in sick, NATCA says, and a second left the facility due to illness before the end of their shift.

Overtime was authorized for the shift. However, only one controller was eligible to work overtime due to requirements for other shifts. NATCA claims the FAA is using approximately 60-70 hours of overtime a week at CRW, in order to meet its staffing needs... leaving few controllers available for any forced overtime when needed.

The result was that the evening shift crew was down to two controllers after 8 pm, instead of the required five. Against the advice of Ennis, FAA managers ordered controllers to run the shift from the TRACON, thus making the tower uncontrolled.

“We had no procedures and were not trained for this type of operation and some of the safety ramifications,” Ennis said. “I recommended that we release our airspace to Indianapolis Center (making CRW a visual flight rules tower but nonetheless staffed by the two controllers on duty), as we have appropriate procedures and are trained for this type of operation. But I was overruled.

“The next 90 minutes was complete chaos," Ennis continued. "We were short staffed, significantly busy, and now forced to come up with a game plan to do something we had neither procedures nor training to do. Due to closing the tower, many aircraft were put into an unsafe environment that included construction on and around the airport, safety equipment that was not monitored, a change in routine operations, local weather not available to aircraft on the ground nor disseminated via the ATIS (Automatic Terminal Information Service), an inability to adjust the airfield lighting panel, unfamiliar aircraft operating on movement areas, etc.”

In addition to the delay of a Healthnet helicopter (stationed at CRW) on an active rescue flight, another aircraft crossed the active runway while on approach frequency because they were lost and could not find the fixed base operator facility on the airport grounds to which they were trying to taxi. Yet another aircraft, an air taxi, was required to abort its landing because they received an unsafe glide slope indication.

“We had no idea if the glide slope was operating correctly or not,” Ennis said. “The monitor is in the tower cab.”

FMI: www.natca.org. www.faa.gov