Legit asking: Is it they can't certify people quick enough, or that people in this occupational set don't get paid enough to make living in the geographic locations these jobs tether them to worth their while?
They have increased starting pay but it still isn't great. It's based on the government GS pay scales. After a while, it's pretty good with government benefits and pension.
I thought active runways were always controlled by Tower not Ground.
Normal operation at LGA is for one Local controller to control both runways and one Ground controller to control all ground movements. I think they may have a separate helicopter frequency and, of course, there's Clearance Delivery, which is often combined with Ground when workload allows. It is common, during less busy times at all facilities, to combine Ground and Tower onto a single controller who may, or may not put all traffic on the Local frequency.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is disputing there was only one controller in the tower last night.
Nobody said that there was only one controller on duty, just that there was only one controller working both the ground and local positions. The other controller, after the accident, was probably very busy coordinating emergency services and working with TRACON and the airport authorities on land lines.
My understanding was the lights were red? So on the Fire Truck?
That isn't yet confirmed. We know that RWSL were installed at the intersection in question but they have not yet confirmed that they were working. From what we know so far, the situation should have been such that the lights would have been on.
no need for the pilots to look out the ****ing windshield
Very little that the pilots could have done. By the time they could have seen the truck(s) crossing the runway it was likely too late to go around. Their only chance to stop the chain would have been to hear the controller clear the trucks to cross but they were on very short final at the time and were pretty busy. It would have been easy to miss with very little time to put it together and realize that they needed to go-around. It's another link in the chain but a weak one.
I wonder if his initial call to Frontier 4195 to stop was supposed to be for Truck 1.
I don't think so. I think it was because Frontier was about to cross the path of the trucks exiting the runway.
Why did the Boeing 737 reject the take off not once but twice?
Not that unusual. After a reject, the Captain calls dispatch and the Mx control and discusses the problem. Mx would likely have a reset procedure. If everything then tests normal, and brake energy allows, another takeoff is attempted. I beleive that the rejects were due to a bleed air system caution light (there are several).
It takes 3-4 years to certify a controller.
More for LGA, of course.
This wasn't overnight, it was during the evening push, at a time they're supposed to have 14 controllers on duty.
The ones I'm talking about were. BNA ATCT closed for at least two nights. Each closure was 4 or 5 hours in length.
There have been other ground stops, due to staffing, during the day but they weren't ATCT closures.
This is NOT a facility where there should be a single controller on duty without limiting traffic.
I don't think the traffic level was high enough to hit such a trigger. The workload increased suddenly because of the emergency declaration and need for the CFR equipment to respond. None of that were "operations" that would be counted nor could be predicted.
it seems completely irresponsible of the FAA to have only one controller working.
Very unlikely that there was only one controller working at the facility. There was one controller working both Local and Ground.
Lots of others things going on in the Tower after the accident that any other controller on duty would have been very busy handling.
