One mission of this organization is to represent the global aviation safety community in the news media. We can go on the record and say things that might not be popular all of the time. In this regard, it’s been an interesting few weeks for the communications staff at the Foundation.
There’s no need to re-hash how the story of sleeping air traffic controllers grew as the number of occurrences multiplied, the traveling public got more concerned and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) got more outraged. We in the United States saw a massive number of news stories. The amount of media coverage shouldn’t surprise any of us.
What did surprise me was the immediate solution offered by DOT to put more staff in the towers, and the impression they gave that the problem was solved. I knew that solution had been tried in Canada, and it didn’t work there. I also knew that there was good research being done into fatigue and how best to prevent or mitigate it. Why was no one ta…
