Browse > Home / Aeronautics News / FAA Supervisor Takes Cell Phone Call While Conducting On-The-Job Training; Runway Incident Occurs

FAA Supervisor Takes Cell Phone Call While Conducting On-The-Job Training; Runway Incident Occurs

Written by thomas · Filed Under Aeronautics News 

October 1, 2008

thomas

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn., Oct. 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Last Wednesday,
in a brazenly callous move, the Federal Aviation Administration supervisor
at the Flying Cloud Airport control tower turned his back on runway
operations during an on-the-job training exercise to take a call on his
cell phone and missed his trainee mistakenly clear an airport vehicle to
cross the runway in front of a departing aircraft.

The FAA has a strict ban on cell phone usage in its operational areas.
The supervisor was training the facility’s manager, who was attempting to
learn ground control for the first time. During that training session the
supervisor turned his back on the trainee and active ground control
operations to take a phone call. Due to the lack of supervision the
trainee/manager permitted an airport vehicle to cross an active runway in
front of a general aviation aircraft departing on the same runway just
2,600 feet away.

Said Great Lakes Regional Vice President Bryan Zilonis: “This is
another case of FAA supervisors flaunting the agency’s blatant and
hypocritical disregard for safety. If a controller had committed this same
unsafe act they would be, at the very least, suspended if not dismissed
entirely. NATCA wants to see the same treatment for these management
officials and we’re waiting with bated breath to see what, if anything, the
FAA will do. Clearly the FAA wants its controllers to do as it says and not
as it does.”

An operational error report was filed by the supervisor and in the
summary report there was no mention of the cell phone.

SOURCE National Air Traffic Controllers Association

» Próximo Post - GIFAS: Reaching for the Sky
« Post Aneterior - LAN Sponsors Humanitarian Mission to Earthquake-Ravaged Region in Peru

Comments

¿Tiene algo que decir?

You must be logged in to post a comment.