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Dr. Amy Pritchett weighs in on air traffic safety in NRC report

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Jun 13, 2014David S. Lewis Associate Professor of Aerospace Engineering Dr. Amy Pritchett served as chair of the committee that issued the report on air traffic safety

A report released this week by the National Research Council indicates worker fatigue and overly demanding shift schedules could be compromising air traffic safety.

AE professor Dr. Amy Pritchett chaired the 12-person Committee for the Study of FAA Air Traffic Controller Staffing, which issued the report, Transportation Research Board Special Report 314: Federal Aviation Administration s Approach for Determining Future Air Traffic Controller Staffing Needs on Friday.

Over the weekend, Pritchett was widely consulted by national media to comment on the NRC report, which called attention to a common scheduling practice that allows air traffic controllers to work four shifts in five days. 

Critics of the so-called 2-2-1 scheduling model contend that it creates an unacceptable interrruption  in the controllers' sleep patterns.

Check out this interview of Pritchett on CBS News.

The FAA has been stepping up its monitoring of fatigue issues since 2011, when several air traffic controllers were discovered to have fallen asleep during their shifts. Officials from that agency said Friday they are reviewing the NRC report.

Among the report’s other key findings:

  • While the FAA’s current models for estimating the number of air traffic controllers required at terminals and airport towers is suitable, models used to staff air traffic control centers between airports can be improved;
  • The FAA and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association should jointly address the fatigue problem by creating controller work schedules that incorporate fatigue mitigation strategies;
  • The FAA should analyze a wide range of data, such as accident and incident reports and voluntary reports by controllers, to identify relationships between staffing and safety;
  • The controller workforce should be involved in staffing decisions, particularly as knowledge emerges about relevant safety issues;
  • The FAA should ensure that staffing continues to be appropriate as it implements the new air traffic operations environment associated with the Next Generation Transportation System, a modernization initiative to shift air traffic management from ground-based radar to a satellite system.

The congressionally mandated report examined both the methods used by the FAA to estimate how many controllers are needed to staff its air traffic control facilities and the use of these estimates to properly distribute controllers across facilities.

Air traffic controllers are the frontline operators of the nation’s airspace system, and their primary function is to safely and efficiently separate aircraft from one another and the terrain, as well as issue safety alerts.

The FAA employs approximately 15,000 air traffic controllers, at a cost of approximately $2.8 billion or 18 percent of the total FAA budget.

The committee expressed concern about shift schedules that contribute to fatigue, especially those in which controllers work five eight-hour shifts over four consecutive days, the last one being a midnight shift. Although the schedule is popular among controllers because it allows them 80 hours off afterward, it likely results in severely reduced cognitive performance during the midnight shift due to fatigue.

FAA headquarters currently provide no consistent guidance or tools to local facilities to help them develop their operational schedules. As a result, each facility develops its own schedule independently of FAA’s staff planning process, which may not be the most efficient or incorporate best practices in fatigue risk management, the committee found.

The FAA established a fatigue risk management program, but recent budget cuts eliminated the program’s ability to proactively monitor fatigue concerns and to investigate whether fatigue risk reduction initiatives are effective. A lack of safety and performance metrics and information about staffing methods limited the committee’s ability to assess the cost-effectiveness of FAA’s overall staffing process.

“The FAA faces many challenges in identifying the level of controller staffing needed to ensure safe and cost- effective services nationally and at its 315 facilities, starting with the lack of definitive methods for relating staffing levels to safety,” said committee chair Amy Pritchett.

“Other complications include the uncertainty of air traffic forecasts and the fact that a large percentage of the controllers are eligible to retire, as it can take years to train new controllers. The committee’s recommendations aim to enable controller staffing decisions that are consistent; that are driven by proper science and data analysis; and that will address relationships between ensuring safety, meeting the operational needs of the aviation community, and demonstrating cost- effectiveness.”

The study was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation. The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council make up the National Academies. They are private, independent nonprofit institutions that provide science, technology, and health policy advice under a congressional charter granted in 1863. The National Research Council is the principal operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. For more information, visitwww.national-academies.org

 

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  • Workflow Status:Published
  • Created By:Britanny Grace
  • Created:07/16/2015
  • Modified By:Fletcher Moore
  • Modified:10/07/2016

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