Comment by lenerdenator
3 months ago
> if half of the air traffic controllers took the offer to leave their jobs, do we have a Plan B?
In theory you could do what Reagan did and tell the military to do ATC.
Whether or not this is a good idea is another matter.
Reagan taking away collective bargaining rights for ATCs seems to be what have led to the shortage and the helicopter accident last week.
The official investigation report is of course going to take a bit, but the ATC audio is public, and the helicopter was warned twice about the plane, and said they had a visual of the plane.
Besides never missing an opportunity to 'slam' the opposition, I have no idea why this is being construed as an ATC failure.
That's a system failure if there's no way to verify just what plane the helicopter had in its sights. If continuing with visual separation in the same place, ATC may very well adjust their language. It would help to identify where in the sky the plane is. Or, if there's a potential for cutting it close, just getting the helicopter to hold back until the plane lands? We wouldn't let a plant fly 200ft above another plane in any other situation
Well, I mean, if we can blame DEI?
That's part of the problem here, everyone is just taking political potshots. Which is to be expected. But the danger is you lose sight of the real issue. As you mentioned, the helo pilot's loss of situational awareness. (Did they ever even have situational awareness?)
We can't be getting into these situations where every crisis is met by this typical American emotional reactionism. We can't be blaming the "left", or the "right", or the most ridiculous one which was "it was the black guys somehow". We gotta stop letting that crap distract us.
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Can I just admit how insane it feels that in the Year of our Lord Automation 2025, air safety basically amounts to:
"Yo watch out for that big plane on your left" and then hope for the best.
> Besides never missing an opportunity to 'slam' the opposition, I have no idea why this is being construed as an ATC failure.
Just saying what I've heard. One issue is that the controller allowed visual separation, to begin with. They say he should have known that it was difficult, especially at night, and shouldn't have allowed it.
Congress keeps approving more flights into DCA over the in hindsight, clear objections by those in charge of safety at DCA, the FAA and several congress people in the minority. Congress people use it as their personal transit hub. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/us/reagan-airport-flights...
Kinda. Collective bargaining rights are great for employees but they do not automatically lead to better outcomes for customers/citizens/etc.
A good counter-example of ATC would be police. Police have strong collective bargaining rights, but mostly came at the expense of accountability and citizen oversight. (And also police departments are still chronically understaffed).
Police are the state's manifestation of the monopoly on violence. Comparing that to civilian safety orgs makes no sense.
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It was 44 years ago. We have had 6 presidents since then. Every single ATC controller from 1981 is retired, most for over a decade. You probably should be looking at a more proximate cause.
Did reagan do anything good in hindsight? Everytime I hear about him he seems like the worst president until trump came along
He pushed for and signed this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Reform_and_Control...
which was a substantial improvement for millions of people. It's worth pointing out that the one (and probably only) good thing I can think of that Reagan did would get him tossed out of today's republican party.
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Nominated the first female to the Supreme Court, Sandra Day O'Connor, and using his bully pulpit to pressure the Soviet Union about East Germany and the eventual dissolution of the USSR.
The challenger/teacher in space thing was under his watch. It was a great idea. It just got screwed by NASA failures.
Also, his handling of the disaster was pretty good.
Depends, were you rich in the 80’s? If so he was amazing at making you even richer.
He became very popular to hate on in the past midterms because his position that "government IS the problem" is more popular than ever given the last administration. It was a vain effort to preempt what they knew was coming.
Seriously, why else would the name of a president who hasn't served in 40 years suddenly be brought up all the time?
Indeed. Wouldn't want people doing a safety-critical job being fairly compensated, after all.