More than four of every 10 air-traffic workers the FAA tried to fire over almost two years kept their jobs or were allowed to retire: that included two-thirds of those targeted for firing over drug or alcohol violations.



‘You’re Fired’ Doesn’t Mean Fired to Four of 10 Air Controllers


Moments before a single-engine aircraft and a helicopter collided over the Hudson River near Manhattan in 2009, an air-traffic controller who should have been advising the plane’s pilot was on the phone, joking with an airport worker about a dead cat.


Nine people, including three teenage boys, died. The Teterboro, New Jersey, controller, whom safety investigators said was distracted and partly to blame for the accident, still works for the Federal Aviation Administration. Although the agency tried to fire him, his punishment was reduced to a suspension, a transfer and a demotion.


What happened to the controller isn’t surprising, according to data obtained by Bloomberg News under the Freedom of Information Act. More than four of every 10 air-traffic workers the FAA tried to fire over almost two years kept their jobs or were allowed to retire, the data show. That included two-thirds of those targeted for firing over drug or alcohol violations.


“Americans should be outraged,” said Marc Scribner, transportation analyst for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a nonprofit Washington group that advocates limited government. “Most government employees are good people and are not screwing up, not doing drugs, but there are bad apples in all levels of government and they should be fired.”


The findings spotlight Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s challenge in carrying out his pledge to fire three controllers caught sleeping on the job in Seattle, Miami, and Knoxville, Tennessee. The Miami worker still works for the FAA after the proposed termination was reduced to a lesser penalty, the Seattle case is pending and the Knoxville worker retired, according to an agency official who isn’t authorized to speak on personnel matters and asked not to be named.

Disciplinary Data

Workers in 58 of 140 proposed firings who kept jobs had penalties rescinded, reduced or deferred, the data show. The disciplinary information was culled from a pool of 20,486 FAA workers, including about 15,600 controllers, and excludes employees with less than one year of service who lack disciplinary protections in the union contract.


The National Air Traffic Controllers Association, the union for the 15,600 employees, declined three requests to respond to the findings of the Bloomberg analysis and offered an e-mailed comment.


Controllers “work to ensure the safety of 70,000 flights every day and make our system the world’s safest,” Doug Church, the group’s spokesman, wrote. “This is the story that the public needs to hear.”


The Senate aviation subcommittee will “ensure that safety standards are a top priority” as the panel evaluates FAA personnel practices, said Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the panel’s leading Republican, in a statement.


“While many factors need to be considered when making air traffic control personnel decisions, safety must be the FAA’s guiding principle,” Thune said.


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