TOWER AT WASHINGTON 'S REAGAN NATIONAL AIRPORT GOES SILENT AS PLANES ATTEMPT TO LAND

[Both planes landed safely after their pilots took matters into their own hands, broadcasting their progress as they approached and landed. They also were communicating with controllers at a separate facility in the region that does not handle landings.]

By Ashley Halsey III

The control tower at Reagan National Airport went silent early Wednesday, forcing the pilots of two airliners carrying a total of 165 passengers and crew members to land on their own.

The tower, which normally is staffed by one air-traffic controller from midnight to 6 a.m., did not respond to pilot requests for landing assistance or to phone calls from controllers elsewhere in the region, who also used a “shout line,” which pipes into a loudspeaker in the tower, internal records show.

An American Airlines Boeing 737 flying in from Miami with 97 people on board circled the airport after receiving no response from the tower at midnight. Minutes later, a United Airlines Airbus 320 flying in from Chicago with 68 people on board also got no answer from the tower.

Both planes landed safely after their pilots took matters into their own hands, broadcasting their progress as they approached and landed. They also were communicating with controllers at a separate facility in the region that does not handle landings.

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the incident.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said late Wednesday he is instructing the agency to increase controller staffing at the airport during the late shift.

“Today I directed the FAA to place two air traffic controllers at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport’s control tower on the midnight shift,” he said in a statement. “It is not acceptable to have just one controller in the tower managing air traffic in this critical air space. I have also asked FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt to study staffing levels at other airports around the country.”

The incident, which the National Transportation Safety Board also is reviewing, is the second time in as many years that the tower at National has gone silent, said a source familiar with tower operations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak for the FAA. The previous time, the lone controller on duty left his swipe-card pass key behind when he stepped outside the tower’s secure door and was unable to get back in, the source said.

A controller at another facility mentioned that incident as the pilots were trying to land Wednesday morning.

A missed handoff

The nation’s air traffic control system has many layers, with a network of en-route controllers directing planes when they are at or near cruising altitude. The airspace beneath that is controlled by Terminal Radar Approach Control facilities known as TRACONs. Takeoffs and the final miles of runway approach are handled by controllers in airport towers.

After midnight, when traffic slows, one person is on duty at the National Airport tower, a shift reserved for a supervisor rather than a regular controller. The planes that landed without tower help were two of the last three inbound commercial flights until 5 a.m., the source said.

A few minutes after midnight on Wednesday, radio recordings show, the TRACON controller handling the flight from Miami made a routine verbal handoff, telling the pilot to contact the tower.

Unable to reach anyone at National, the pilot aborted the approach, circled the airport and radioed the Potomac TRACON controller for help in aligning the plane for landing. A few minutes later, when the United plane approached for landing, the TRACON controller told him that the tower was unmanned.

The TRACON controller had a similar conversation with a second American plane.

“So you’re aware,” the controller said, “the tower is apparently not manned. We’ve made a few phone calls. Two airplanes went in the past 10-15 minutes, so you can expect to go into an uncontrolled airport.”

“Is there a reason it’s not manned?” the American pilot asked.

“Well, I’m going to take a guess,” the controller replied, “and say that the controller got locked out. I’ve heard of it happening before.”

“That’s the first time I’ve heard of it,” the pilot said.

“Fortunately, it’s not very often,” the controller said. “It happened about a year ago. I’m not sure that’s what happened now, but there’s nobody in the tower.”

Finding their way

The first two planes landed and used information from their airlines to find the correct gates. By the time the third plane touched down, after about half an hour of silence, communication from the tower had been restored.

The greatest risk posed by silence from the tower was on the ground rather than in the air. Planes routinely land in smaller airports without guidance from a tower.

In a circumstance like the one that occurred at National, pilots get on the control tower radio frequency and relay their position, speed and distance to other pilots as they approach and land.

“So, other airplanes would know, ‘Okay, he’s clear of the runway, so I’m good to go,’ ” said the source familiar with tower operations.

On the ground, however, the slow nighttime hours are when maintenance crews crisscross the runway — sometimes towing planes — as they prepare for the next morning.

“There are people in the control tower for a reason,” the source said. “There’s a whole lot of activity going on during the night.”

Those maintenance workers contact the tower on a special frequency to get clearance before crossing a runway. Inbound pilots contact the tower on a different frequency.

At airports where the tower shuts down for the night, ground crews and incoming pilots are required to use the same radio frequency to coordinate their actions.

Air traffic controllers who direct more than 1.5 million flights annually in the Washington region made a record number of mistakes last year. Dozens of the errors triggered cockpit collision warning systems.

Nationwide, errors by air traffic controllers increased by 51 percent last year. The record number of errors — locally and nationally — reflects a majority of instances in which planes came too close and some in which a potentially fatal outcome was narrowly averted.

In January, an American Airlines plane carrying 259 people almost collided with a pair of 200-ton military cargo jets after departing New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. Official records show that a distracted controller did not respond to a warning from a colleague that the planes were on a converging course.

@ The Washington Post

PAKISTAN’S PRESIDENT VOWS, AGAIN, TO FIGHT EXTREMISM

 

[But in a sign of Mr. Zardari’s increasing isolation, he was speaking to a half-empty chamber: a walkout of the main opposition parties at the start of the address included the largest, the Pakistan Muslim League of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Ostensibly a statement against government corruption, the protest was an example of the constant political wrangling that daily threatens to overwhelm the government.] 

By Carlotta Gall And Salman Masood

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the recent murders of two high-level officials of his government and vowed to fight militancy and extremism to the end, speaking in his yearly address at the opening of Parliament on Tuesday.

“We will fight militants to the finish,” he said to loud applause from his party supporters. “We will not back down. We cannot permit the use of our soil for terrorist activities against any other country, we will not.”

But in a sign of Mr. Zardari’s increasing isolation, he was speaking to a half-empty chamber: a walkout of the main opposition parties at the start of the address included the largest, the Pakistan Muslim League of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Ostensibly a statement against government corruption, the protest was an example of the constant political wrangling that daily threatens to overwhelm the government.

A burst of heckling as he began speaking died down when Mr. Zardari loudly condemned the burning of a Koran in Florida on Sunday, an event that drew few attendees and slipped by with little media attention. The event was held at a tiny church whose pastor, Terry Jones, created an international stir last year with the threat to burn a Koran, before backing off amid criticism both of him and the American media for giving him outsize attention.

Three years into a five-year term, Mr. Zardari is showing an ability to survive politically despite repeated predictions of his government’s collapse. In his address, he listed broad achievements on his watch. In particular, he noted constitutional reforms that strengthen democracy, including his own actions to relinquish presidential powers acquired by military rulers, and changes to devolve power to the provinces.

He promised further political change in the restive tribal areas, which has met with resistance from the Pakistani military, as well as economic and energy reforms and increased regional trade.

Despite an increasingly difficult and unpopular relationship with the United States, he reiterated his party’s conviction to fight terrorism and develop good long-term relations with neighboring Afghanistan, and the United States and other regional actors. “We seek trade, not aid,” he said.

“With the United States we remain committed to building a long-term partnership based on mutual respect, mutual interest, and sovereign equality,” he said. Relations with Afghanistan had undergone a “sea change” under his government, he said.

He condemned the killing of the former Punjab Province governor, Salman Taseer, who was assassinated by one of his own security guards in January, and that of the minister for minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti, in the first week of March. Both had campaigned for changes to Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, which often are used to persecute Christians and other religious minorities.

Mr. Zardari’s government has dropped its plans to revise the blasphemy laws and he did not mention the issue in his speech, but promised to protect the rights of  minorities.

“We will ensure a modern, moderate Pakistan,” Mr. Zardari said. “We will avenge the martyrdom of heroes of democracy by defeating the mind-set that preaches violence and hatred,” he went on.

“We must be true to our principles, and we must be strong,” he said. “Being strong means, denouncing what is wrong. And violence, hatred, extremism and intolerance are wrong.” In the climate of fear that followed the killings of the two officials, Mr. Zardari and members of his government were criticized for their weak response in condemning the murders and pursuing their assassins.

He also vowed to continue to pursue those behind the death of his wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, during an attack by extremists in 2007 in Rawalpindi, the garrison city adjacent to Islamabad. After a United Nations commission completed its inquiry into her death, the government had brought forward a new prosecution document to court, he said.

Her family and her party, the Pakistan Peoples Party, did not want revenge, he said. “We aim at defeating the mind-set that was behind her assassination. As she herself so famously said: ‘Democracy is the best revenge.’ ”

“The fight against militancy may be long and bitter, but we have no other option except to win. And win we will, soon, God willing,” he said.

 @ The New York Times