HomePair was unsupervised in tower when two planes nearly collided, top official testifies.
By Josh Drobnyk | Call Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - A top official at the Federal Aviation Administration told lawmakers Thursday he's concerned that two relatively inexperienced air traffic controllers were alone on duty in the tower -- while other controllers were on break -- when two planes narrowly missed colliding last week at Lehigh Valley International Airport.
A regional jet carrying 39 passengers had to swerve on takeoff last Friday night to avoid a small plane that was taxiing on the runway. They missed one another by about 10 feet.
Testifying before a U.S. House aviation panel, Hank Krakowski, chief operating officer of the FAA's Air Traffic Organization, said neither of the two controllers in the LVIA tower was fully certified. Of the six other controllers on duty, three were on break and the others were handling radar.
Krakowski said the controller who cleared the Chicago-bound United Express flight for take-off completed his training a month ago, but has been decertified and must undergo more training, as is normal procedure after a near-collision. The controller in charge at the time had been at LVIA for 10 months and had five years of experience.
Though neither was fully certified to handle every controller position, both had the proper training to handle traffic, Krakowski said.
''There is a concern here how we ended up in that configuration,'' Krakowski told lawmakers. Still, he said he doesn't believe it was a violation of FAA rules that neither controller was fully certified, and he emphasized that the controller in charge ''was no amateur.''
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the incident.
''I need to understand why the complement of people who were on break were on break, what was the decision making around having those two controllers up there at that time of day with that traffic level,'' Krakowski said after the hearing, which focused on runway safety. ''I've got questions. I'd like to understand this.''
Among those on break at the time was the supervisor of all the controllers. There was one other plane ''in the pattern'' at the time, he said.
Including Friday's close call at LVIA, there have been 24 ''serious runway incursions'' -- as near-collisions are described by the FAA -- in the fiscal year that ends Tuesday, matching the total from last year.
But because overall airport traffic is down this year, the rate has increased by about 10 percent, according to the Government Accountability Office, whose top aviation expert testified before the panel Thursday. At the same time, the rate of ''unauthorized intrusions'' on runways -- regardless of whether there was a potential for a collision -- is up 12 percent from 2007.
Runway safety has been listed annually on the NTSB's ''most wanted list of transportation improvements.''
''We cannot become complacent about our safety,'' said U.S. Rep. Jerry Costello, the Democratic chairman of the Transportation Committee's aviation panel. ''One accident or one near-accident is one too many.''
The FAA, responding to pressure to improve safety, has made several technological upgrades this year -- from enhanced surveillance to improved runway lighting -- but has so far rolled out the changes at only the nation's largest airports.
''We can do everything right, but we still have human factor issues to tackle,'' Krakowski said.
Much of Thursday's hearing focused on the chain of events that led up to Friday's near-collision at LVIA.
Around 7:45 p.m., shortly after a Cessna landed but before it had cleared the runway, an LVIA air traffic controller gave the United Express jet the go-ahead to take off. But the four-seat propeller plane had missed its turn while taxiing, and the jet going 138 mph had to brake and swerve to avoid it.
Patrick Forrey, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, questioned an FAA policy that would allow two controllers who weren't fully certified to man an airport tower.
''I think that is a bad policy that had people sitting in a tower all by themselves who weren't fully certified,'' he told lawmakers.
Pressed on who was to blame for the incident, Krakowski said the evidence points toward error by the air traffic controller, but ''we'll let the NTSB do the work.''
''This is normal stuff you do after an event like this,'' he said afterward. ''Did we make good management decisions? Yes or no? So we are going to find out as the NTSB works through this.''
U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent, R-15th District, a member of the aviation subcommittee, also attended the hearing.
''Obviously, we need to have a thorough investigation,'' he said. ''It's pretty clear the jet was cleared for take-off when it shouldn't have been.''
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