European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - February 18, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse Pressure cooker profession Why would anyone want to be an air traffic controller by Bob Baker los Angeles times col Davies a air traffic controller in the Tower at Lindbergh Field in san Diego is not As Quick at noticing quirks of motion in the sky or on. The ground. He says his skills a a the Mastery of simultaneously watching speaking listening and writing a Are deteriorating. A a a a. Quot As your age increases so does your failure rate Quot he says soberly. Quot it s a Young Man s . Scott Davies is 32 years old. Athe feb. 1 ground collision in los Angeles Between a. Sky West commuter plane and a us air jetliner in which the Tower controller apparently lost track of the position of the planes left Many people wondering Why anybody would want to be a controller. . With skills controllers in the. United states can make up to $70,000 a year by their late 20s, no College degree required. They can have the Job a Security and benefits of the Federal civil service. They a. Succeed or fail on their own Merit is they Are challenged. Every Day by an array of three dimensional puzzles. A. Of course there a the workload which increases a a a constantly. And the schedule which changes every and the equipment which is sometimes outdated Ora unreliable.1 and this thought the smallest mistake can Kilt Pepple. A 7, Quot 7 7 a. A Quot its a funny Job Quot said or Robert Rose,.a senior health program adviser Ai the John a and Catherine t. A a Malar thur foundation who authored the most Well known study of controller stress "ydu-tfbve4gjione your controllers at work in the main room of Boston air route traffic control Center in Nashua . A me skills for years but later there s not a lot of other jobs you can get with that ,. V \ 7 roses study of 4 16 new York and new England Quot controllers published in the late 1970s, found that they. Were two to three times More Likely than others their age to a develop High blood pressure the study also found that 55. Percent were heavy drinkers although changing social mores Are believed to have reduced that tendency considerably -. A a 7 another study Lound that controllers at Chicago s o Haro Airport produced More than other people did while awake and Active. A a but there Are a lot of people who like that live wire. Sensation of tooling responsible off chaos or a bending it Back into order even now nearly 10 years after she last directed jets from the Tower of los Angeles International Airport Crystal Mason revels in til miss it forever it ii never be. Replaced once you be done it it s a High you get planes Are everywhere and you manage to gel through it. It s a very euphoric your Way out of 7 trouble. You finish and you wind up sitting in the Back a. You can to leave people Are a a coming up and giving you advice replaying it and your head is pulsating. If gives you Quot self esteem i did t find it a stressful. Later i worked As a police dispatcher. That s a stressful later i opened a Der having employees that a. A. Mason Lett the profession along with-11-,400 other controllers in one of the biggest mass firings in american history. Their Union having complained forbears that the Federal aviation administration was giving them too Little say in the Structure of the traffic control system and too Little Money went on strike in mid-1981, As Federal employees they were legally banned from striking. President Reagan tired them. A prospective replacements were easy to come by. 123,000 people applied for the openings but the process of replenishing the ranks is still going on and it has a a or dramatically changed the face of the air traffic control. So Quot a the workload increases constantly the slightest mistake can kill people. Profession which today number s about 17,000 controllers and supervisors. Quot. 7 a. A a before the strike most controllers came from the military. Today few do. Most now come with at least some College a a half have a degree. One sixth of the students at the Faa s training Academy in Oklahoma City which gives introductory training to about 3,000 students a year Are. Women. Applicants must pass an Academy Entrance exam undergo eight grueling weeks of tutoring pass a graduation exam .7 with a failure rate that recently has run 60 percent or higher and then absorb two to Field training. Y -. The new workforce is significantly younger because Thefan will not hire a controller Over the age of 31 r the Agency. Views 22 As the optimum starting age j. As a result of these changes the Faa has about 3,000 a fewer exp no need Cost Salt a s As your age increases so does your failure rate he says soberly. A it s a Young Man s game a those rated Able to perform every the Tower or other traffic control facility a than it. Did when the strike occurred. Studies describe controllers As outgoing and highly a a a intelligent possessing a rare _ combination of mechanical a. Aptitude and verbal skills. They tend to be aggressive personalities fond of acting on a. Impulse. A 7 Quot doing it puts you in a different world Quot Mason said. Quot you re driving Down a Street and find yourself looking for a a holes a looking at the spacing of the cars the Way you a train yourself to look for holes in air traffic to plane to a. A a. What controllers do is on its face fairly simple from a towers or radar facilities they talk to pilots of planes an make sure that proper Quot separation Quot is maintained during. Takeoffs Light and landings. Doing requires the no Story of spatial Quot a. Relations the ability to visualize a particular chunk of a airspace and to then absorb a rapid Eer changing Stream of information about planes flying into that airspace and. Of Shaily to advise each plane How its presence May affect. ,. Another plane. A. A. A add bad weather Holiday traffic or a. Miscalculation by a Pilot or two arid suddenly Success or failure depends on a 7 whether the controller can perform two or three functions at once shutting out distracting voices while remaining -. A sensitive to relevant ones. A a. A ,7 a n controllers describe As Quot getting the picture Quot a a a a a knowing where every plane in your assigned sector of. Airspace or ground is located at a Given instant a How fast it s Tsivina. How Heafy and being Able to anticipate where a they la be in the next instant. \ 7 7 a lose the picture and bad things happen. The More a precise your knowledge the More confidently end quickly you can dictate the two planes a or three or a eight or nine that need now even when a Radai frequency or computer temporarily malfunctions a when you think of a controller think of a bartender says Larry Suppan who retired a few years ago at 50 after. Working 15 years As a controller and.1.3 in various Quot Quot. Supervisor jobs. A. .7 7 a. Quot you go to a Busy cocktail lounge see a bartender setting. Up eight glasses while he s pouring drinks the waitress is Yelling out a new order and at the same time he s adding. Up the Bill. That a what you have to be Able to hear talk and. Write at the same time Quot a 7 7 a. -. A a a a. The Quot difference is that bartenders recover from mistakes More easily. Suppan remembers meeting a controller who a had been involved in the crash of a private plane Side of a Fountain. After several year Seaway from the boards the controller came Back. T a a Quot Yerom Viat i heard a month Quot Suppan says sadly. Researcher Rose remembers a controller who handled a flight that crashed Short of the runway in new York in the 1970s, killing 112 people. The controller was unable to Vork for nine months then died two years later of an aneurysm. A / a a. 7. Some people do make it Back. Walter White,.the controller on duty when an Aero Mexico Jet and a private plane crashed Over Cerritos calif., in 1986, killing 82 people is Back at work As a controller. A National transportation safety Board investigation placed no direct blame on him. A the mistake that apparently was made by the ground. Controller Robin Lee Wascher at the los Angeles Airport of feb 1 is particularly haunting. The act of leaving a Small plane in the Landing path of a jetliner and forgetting it was there is so reminiscent of the simplest everyday household error a leaving a Kettle on the wrong Burner. Everyone can imagine making the mistake a a a it. To controllers the error is a reminder of the fragility of the. Skills that often seem so powerful As to be mysterious. She Ostlie flies Quot Scius Orte who once worked the same Job at lax Tower translation the controller forgot where the. Planes were Quot if you re not Able to do it you Tell somebody. A. That was her mistake. There a nothing wrong with going Down the tubes a it s How you gel out of , be
