Understaffed and overworked air traffic control crews have long been an issue at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, lawmakers say — another potential cause of the midair collision between a commercial jet and military helicopter over the Potomac River that killed 67 people Wednesday night in the nation’s deadliest air crash since 2001.
“We know that the air traffic control tower at Reagan National, which was supposed to have about 30 air traffic controllers [on staff], only has about 19 because of severe air traffic controller shortages in Washington and nationally,” Sen. Tim Kaine said Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“We know that normally there would be somebody in the tower handling helicopter traffic and someone else handling plane traffic, because those pilots speak on different frequencies,” noted Kaine (D-Va.).
Rep. Troy Nehls, a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, told The Post that Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials had long known about the “staffing issues” and that the air traffic controller involved was “not only dealing with the helicopter flying up and down the Potomac but was also directing aircraft.”
“Those responsibilities should have been shared,” Nehls (R-Texas) said. “It was one person doing that job.”
“Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport has 25 Certified Professional Controllers and three Certified Professional Controllers in Training (CPC-ITs),” a FAA spokeswoman told The Post.
“CPC-ITs were previously fully certified at other facilities. The tower is authorized to have 28 controllers.”
A preliminary report from the agency, however, found staffing levels were “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” according to Fox News, and that air traffic controllers have been known to step away from their duties for breaks or when there are fewer incoming flights.
The FAA workforce plan last year also shows the DCA tower had set an optimal 2024 staffing target at 30.
“With one person handling both and having to toggle back and forth between different frequencies, the question would be, were all the pilots able to hear one another?” Kaine wondered.
The FAA rep did not respond to a request for comment on whether the air traffic controller was doing the work of two.
Nehls told “Fox & Friends” earlier Friday that air traffic controllers have “a very stressful job” overseeing the congested airport, which is built on coastal wetlands on the Virginia side of the Potomac and borders some of the most restricted airspace in the world.
According to the workforce plan, FAA officials reduced their hiring targets from 900 to 510 in fiscal year 2021, which covered the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated travel restrictions — but later pushed the goal to 1,800, which it cleared with 1,811 personnel retained by the end of 2024.
Some airline executives have still sounded the alarm in recent years about recruitment efforts falling short.
“I think we’re 3,000 controllers short right now,” Frontier Airlines CEO Barry Biffle said on Fox Business’ “The Claman Countdown” in early 2024.
The workforce document faults a “government-wide discretionary sequester” under former President Barack Obama that “forced the FAA to institute a prolonged hiring freeze” — as well as a 35-day federal shutdown during the first Trump administration — for “large hiring and training delays.”
President Trump claimed during a Thursday press conference that his predecessors had “a big push to put diversity into the FAA’s program” and that former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg ran the FAA “right into the ground with his diversity.”
“The FAA diversity push includes focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities,” the president said. “That is amazing.”
The Biden-era workforce plan does state that the “FAA is fully committed to equal employment opportunity principles, seeks to create and maintain a professional and inclusive workforce,” and references the agency’s “Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan 2021-2025” in particular.
It pledges to focus “on increasing its outreach and recruitment to communities that have historically had low participation rates in the [air traffic controller] occupation,” specifically “persons with disabilities, the Aviation Development Program (ADP), and outreach to Minority Serving Institutions, Hispanic Serving Institutions and HBCUs.”
The National Airspace Safety Review Team issued a report the same year that “raised serious concerns with respect to controller fatigue and off-duty time,” recommending at least “10 hours off between shifts and 12 hours off before a midnight shift.”
A FAA hotline set up to receive complaints revealed in 2023 that overworked and mentally on-edge air traffic control staff have been known to fall asleep, get high and even physically assault their co-workers on the job, the New York Times reported.
Some have even committed suicide.
Congress passed an FAA reauthorization bill in May 2024, which was later signed into law and included a provision to hire “the maximum number of individuals able to be trained at the Federal Aviation Administration Academy” for the next four fiscal years.
The agency’s administrator was also directed to study hiring and retention needs for air traffic controllers “to maintain the safety of the national airspace system.”
“In the reauthorization, we had about 80 different safety recommendations,” Nehls told The Post on Friday, “making sure the FAA was doing everything it possible could to increase the staffing.”
The Texas Republican said he and other colleagues were awaiting a comprehensive report on the crash from the National Transportation Safety Board before considering next steps.
Reps for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association did not respond to a request for comment.
