The “air traffic control staff” was not normal “at the time of the air collision between a military helicopter and a passenger aircraft in Washington, DC, which killed 67 people, confessed to Sean Duffy’s transport secretary.
US media reported that Tower Reagan National Airport had a person during a collision on Wednesday, according to a government report.
One air traffic control worker managed helicopters and some airport airplanes, a job usually performed by two people, for CBS News, two sources, for CBS News, BBC US news.
“I will take the Federal Air Force Directorate (FAA) to their word that this is not normal,” Duffy said when asked about reports during the Fox News Sunday Program.
Duffy said “that was part of the review process we must do.”
He explained that there was “the consolidation of the air traffic controller an hour before it should have happened at the time of this collision. And so it was, what was the appropriateness of that?”
Duffy asked questions about whether the controllers “focused properly, in accordance with the FAA procedures, as well as the elevation of the helicopter.
National Traffic Safety Member (NTSB) Todd Inman said the preliminary data found that the helicopter was flying to about 200 FT (60 m), CBS reported. The helicopter flight ceiling in the area near the Reagan National Airport is 200ft.
Duffy also questioned the time of his flight.
“Why would you fly a mission at nine o’clock at night through a really busy airspace … Unlike flying that mission at one o’clock in the morning, when there is very little traffic”? he asked.
“I want our army to be dressed and ready to go, but I also want the air passengers to be safe, and the time and place for it, not at nine o’clock at night when there is heavy traffic.”
Investigators are considering numerous factors, including the height, in determining the cause of the collision, but have not yet reached any public conclusions, NTSB officials said on Thursday.
There were 64 passengers on the American Airlines flight when he collided in the middle of the air with a helicopter for black hawks who carried three soldiers. There were no survivors.
Dozens of family members gathered at the scene of a collision on Sunday morning.
They arrived in Chartered buses with police escorts, first traveling to the collision scene and then to the runway where the flight was supposed to land.
Duffy said they now have a chronic problem with influence in air traffic control.
US media reported that more than 90% of the air traffic control plant in the country operates below the level of staff recommending the FAA.
“We haven’t had enough air traffic controllers in America for a long time,” Duffy said, adding “they are stressed. They are fulfilled. They are too busy. It is not an excuse. This is just a reality of what is just a reality of what we have in the system . ”
The new carrier for transportation said that he cooperates with FAA on the training of new air traffic controllers and “has a plan that will come out to solve the problem, but the problem is that you cannot transfer the switch and get air traffic controllers tomorrow.”
