Air-traffic controllers cope with wild swings

July 17, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO

Sitting in an airport tower peering into the darkness or working inside a quiet, dimly lit radar room can be disastrous for air-traffic controllers who work long, grueling hours and must stay awake all night.

An adrenaline rush is often followed by an energy crash, echoing the pattern of staring at radar scopes while multitasking during rush periods and then having nothing to do during lulls in flight activity. And that’s just one shift, which may end in the morning and be followed by an afternoon shift.

The only constant is that controllers must be alert, with eyes wide open, all the time.

Coinciding with the busy summer travel season, the Federal Aviation Administration this month issued new rules that allow controllers to request leaves if they are too tired to work. It comes after repeated warnings from safety watchdogs over the years that alternating shift work intensifies fatigue problems and may be linked to increases in controller errors.

But the action, coming in the wake of highly publicized incidents in which controllers fell asleep on the job, may not go far enough, according to some sleep science researchers. They advised the FAA to allow controllers to nap during breaks.

During visits by a Chicago Tribune reporter and photographer to the main air-traffic tower at O’Hare International Airport and the air traffic control center for the Chicago region — access that is unprecedented since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — the overall picture that emerged supports the hard data showing that U.S. commercial air travel is the safest it has ever been.

But amid that exemplary record and professionalism, interviews with controllers also highlighted the job’s physical and mental tolls.

Chicago-area controllers say there is no excuse for the lapses that have occurred at other FAA facilities, including one case in which a controller laid out a bed for himself. The fear of making a mistake that would place planes packed with passengers in danger is always in the back of a controller’s mind, and the nationwide scorn that resulted from the sleeping-controllers scandal really stings, they said.

“We were the butt of jokes to every stand-up comedian around. That doesn’t feel good,” said Jeff Richards, the controllers union chief at the FAA’s Chicago Center in Aurora, which handles high-altitude traffic in the Midwest. “We are doing our jobs just fine.”

Each controller copes with the weird hours and the job stress differently.

Using the exercise rooms at FAA centers or just taking a walk under the bright lights of airport terminal buildings are among the important rituals that controllers follow to recuperate after working airplanes nonstop for an hour to 90 minutes. The controllers get 45-minute breaks. Plenty of coffee helps, too. For smokers, FAA facilities are perhaps the only federal buildings that still have smoking rooms.

“I will stand up while working traffic,” said David Stock, a controller at the Chicago TRACON radar center in Elgin, Ill., where controllers handle aircraft approaching and departing Chicago-area airports. “People accuse me of doing tai chi. But some of the jobs are monotonous, until all of a sudden you have a problem and must make a split-second decision.”

Until now, taking sick leave to fight fatigue was prohibited. Some veteran controllers said in the past they worried about taking time off when they were overly tired for fear of receiving a sick-leave letter or being let go.

Under the new changes aimed at fighting controller fatigue, the FAA will permit controllers to use sick time if they are too tired to work. The new policy, which the FAA said will be implemented by September 2012, is part of an agreement with the controllers union, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, in response to the incidents this year in which controllers fell asleep.

The FAA will also allow controllers to listen to the radio and read during overnight shifts at airport towers and radar facilities where traffic is light during those hours. Most FAA controller facilities allowed the playing of radios in the past, but eliminated the option in about 2006.

In April, the FAA gave controllers an extra hour off between shifts, for a minimum of nine hours’ rest, so they don’t doze off at work.

But U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has refused to compromise on a longstanding FAA rule that prohibits controllers from taking naps — or even closing their eyes — while on break or to schedule naps when multiple controllers are working overnight shifts. LaHood’s hard-line stance against paying workers to sleep runs counter to recent sleep-science research that shows short naps are effective in re-energizing tired workers, experts said.

“It’s ridiculous that air-traffic controllers are not allowed to close their eyes when they are on break. There isn’t another profession where this is prohibited,” said Joseph Bellino, a retired controller who worked for 42 years at O’Hare. “Is there a pilot or a passenger who wants a tired controller working their airplane?”