What's happened instead is a disaster in the wings. Planes and controllers are constantly finding themselves making the wrong turns. All it takes is one mistake and we've got a disaster on our hands.
Controllers are accusing the Federal Aviation Administration of "covering up" by not reporting what some say could be hundreds of "pilot deviations" in which aircraft follow the wrong departure instructions — and send controllers scurrying to quickly correct the mistakes.If the union is correct on this, the FAA has screwed up bigtime in making sure that pilots know the proper procedures and that they're rigorously followed.
When controllers have sought to report many of these incidents, they've been told by supervisors: "Don't bother," said Edward Kragh, the controllers' union representative at Newark.
"It's a nightmare," said Phil Barbarello, eastern regional vice president for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. "It hasn't reduced delays. It just adds to the confusion."
The FAA declined to respond to the union's allegations and has confirmed only four pilot deviations — two on Oct. 1 and two on Oct. 16 — have taken place since September.
"Air traffic controllers who are handling planes departing from Newark Liberty International Airport are using procedures that are operationally feasible and safe," according to an FAA statement released by spokesman Jim Peters on Thursday.
Controllers, however, provided The Record with logged accounts of three incidents involving pilot mistakes that happened Thanksgiving morning, just as travelers were departing in the midst of one of the busiest holiday weekends of the year.
* At 8:12 a.m., a Colgan turbo-prop plane that could hold 90 passengers made a left turn when it should have made a right out of the airport, according to the controllers' logs.
* Four minutes later, another Colgan plane — the company has a partnership with Continental — made the opposite mistake, turning right when it should have turned left, according to the same logs.
* Nearly 90 minutes later, at 9:42 a.m., a Continental flight bound for Seattle veered left when it should have turned right, according to the logs.
"Eventually we're going to whack two planes together and then they're going to say something about it," said Kragh.
Those incidents followed three wrong turns in May involving Continental Airlines pilots who flew off-course. But controllers say there have been many more where quick decision-making quite possibly averted a disaster.
"I saw a guy who just headed out straight when he wasn't supposed to. We had to turn the other guys [who were already in the air] out of the way," said Dan D'Agostino, a Newark controller. "We're trained to do something right away."
In its statement, the FAA acknowledged that some aircraft departing the airport "have not followed the assigned heading upon takeoff" as the agency has established its new flight patterns.
It also means that the FAA's handling of the airport departure and arrival practices is needlessly putting lives in jeopardy and increasing pressure on controllers to watch for deviations in flight plans.
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