crossposted from unbossed
Part I, provided background on airline deregulation and its impact on working conditions and safety in the airline industry. It also included links to several earlier pieces on this subject. It then included in full recent testimony by Captain Sully Sullenberger on those same issues.
This Part examines other testimony on that subject at the February 24, 2009 Subcommittee on Aviation - US Airways Flight 1549 Accident.
Captain Chesley B Sullenberger III, U.S. Airways, Inc. was not the only witness at that hearing. Nor was he the only union member involved in averting disaster. He may have been the only activist union member, as described by this bio.
Captain Sullenberger, known as Sully, flew the F-4 for the United States Air Force for seven years in the 1970s after graduating from the United States Air Force Academy. He joined USAir, as it was called at the time, in 1980 and became a "check airman," training and evaluating new pilots or those changing to new aircraft or moving up to captain. He also was an accident investigator for the union, the Air Line Pilots Association, and is certified as a glider pilot.
The testimony of Patrick F. Harten, the Air Traffic Controller who was on duty that day is particularly striking. It tells you just what a hard job it is keeping us safe. You may have heard a recording of his interactions with Sullenberger after the plane was disabled.
Harten is also a union member, but of a union with an interesting past. National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) is a union formed by workers who were hired to replace the air traffic controllers fired by President Reagan after they struck over highly stressful working conditions. Reagan also disbanded their union - PATCO. They formed NATCA when they found the conditions very tough and the demands of the PATCO members were justified.
Here is how Harten describes the experience of trying to keep the passengers in US Airways Flight 1549 from harm.
I then lost radio contact with 1549, and the target disappeared from my radar screen as he dropped below the tops of the New York City skyscrapers. I was in shock. I was sure the plane had gone down.
Less than a minute later, 1549 flickered back onto my radar scope. The aircraft was at a very low altitude, but its return to radar coverage meant that there was a possibility 1549 had regained the use of one of its engines.
Grasping at that tiny glimmer of hope, I told 1549 that it could land at EWR seven miles away on Runway 29, but I received no response. I then lost radar contact again, this time for good.
I was relieved from my position a few minutes later, as soon as it was possible. I was in no position to continue to work air traffic. It was the lowest low I had ever felt. I wanted to talk to my wife. But I knew if I tried to speak or even heard her voice, I would fall apart completely.
I settled for a hasty text message: "Had a Crash. Not ok. Can’t talk now." When I got home, she told me she thought I had been in a car accident. Truth was I felt like I’d been hit by a bus.
It took six hours before I could leave the facility. I had to review the tapes, fill out paperwork and make an official statement.
The sort of work flight controllers and pilots do may be routine for the most part. But what we pay them for and what they train for are the rare times when their work is not routine, when split second correct responses and deep knowledge are called for.
Harten is lucky that he is represented by a union. It can bargain over stressful working conditions such as these. It can protect him and his fellow flight controllers before hand by negotiating how work is performed and afterwards by negotiating how he is treated.
More to come on other testimony.