Air traffic controllers tasked with handling safety and security of air traffic in the Washington DC region say new general aviation security measures imposed by US Federal Aviation Administration, set to go live on 30 August, will further stretch already overworked controllers.
"Where am I going to get the staffers?" asks Chris Sutherland, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) facility representative for the Potomac consolidated air traffic control facility, the location that handles DC-area traffic.
FAA administrator Marion Blakey announced a reduction in the size and complexity of the Washington DC air defence identification zone (ADIZ) and an increase in the number of controllers at the Experimental Aircraft Association's AirVenture annual air show at Oshkosh two weeks ago. While the process for using the ADIZ will be simplified for pilots under the plan, controllers are being asked to provide increased surveillance of aircraft on radar by monitoring flight tracks that stray from the pilots' stated intentions, says Sutherland.
Put in place in 2003, the ADIZ requires visual flight rules pilots to file a flight plan, receive a transponder code and establish two-way radio communications with controllers for flights within a large radius around Washington's three primary commercial air traffic airports. Overlooking controllers are homeland security and defence officials charged with defending the nation's capital region. Despite the restrictions, a specific terrorist threat linked to VFR GA traffic has never been publicly aired.
Included in Blakey's announcement was a promise to add four more air traffic controllers to the Potomac facility, exclusively to handle GA traffic in the region. Sutherland says his latest information is that the FAA will add three controller positions, the fourth being a security oversight position that already exists.
Finding the three controllers will be problematic. Sutherland says the facility has only 68% of its allotted certificated controllers today, and the new positions will have to come from internal staff, further stretching resources. "We'll have to do it with overtime," he says.
Source: Flight International
