A Federal Aviation Administration official testified Thursday that the control tower at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport was close to being fully staffed on the night of a deadly collision between a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter and a passenger aircraft in January, but a contractor said he found two years ago that staffing was “not necessarily healthy” at the facility.
Nick Fuller, an FAA deputy chief operating officer for air traffic, told National Transportation Safety Board investigators that the night of the January crash, the tower had 26 of the 28 controllers’ positions filled, reports Politico.
One controller was handling the airport’s helicopter and airplane traffic at the same time, he further said, adding that it was not unusual for that to happen, except the transition took place earlier that day than was typical.
Normally, that responsibility is divided between two controllers until 9:40 p.m., which is more than 40 minutes after the two aircraft collided, according to records.
However, another witness, James Jarvis, who is employed by FAA contractor Leidos, testified that when conducting compliance verifications at Reagan National from 2017 through July 2023, he pushed for an additional staff specialist and another operations manager for the tower, but was told to “quit bringing it up.”
He testified that he also found that there was a limited number of senior staff, which affected the younger controllers’ training.
“The workforce is very young, but they need a lot of attention, and that’s a heavy workload on that Operations Manager,” Jarvis said he found.
Fuller, though, insisted that it is safe to fly into Reagan National, telling the investigators that the “controllers at [Reagan National] are responsible, well trained,” and that he would “have no problem moving out on a flight in or out of that airport on any given day.”
However, Rick Dressler, an aviation site manager for Metro Aviation, Inc., said the airspace near the airport now is “the least safe that it’s ever been.”
“Since 1986, the helicopter routes were very successful,” Dressler testified. “Obviously, that success ended quite tragically on January 29.”
The NTSB’s investigation is focusing on the air traffic controller workload at Reagan National, including the decision to have one controller on the night of the crash tasked with managing helicopter and airplane traffic.
Clark Allen, the operations manager in January at Reagan National, said that combining the responsibilities would have required the air traffic controller to develop a “whole plan for the airspace.”
NTSB investigator Brian Soper said he was concerned that there was a mentality among the controllers interviewed by the board that “we just make it work,” and asked FAA officials to justify that belief.
Allen responded that the attitude is about using “all available tools,” but he acknowledged concerns about the airport’s congestion.
“Being a high volume, high complex airport with not a lot of real estate, you have to keep [planes] moving in order to provide a safe and efficient service,” he said.
Fuller, meanwhile, said the “we just make it work” mentality was not based on pressure from the airport.
“‘We just make it work’ means we’re going to get you where you’re going as safely as possible,” he said. “It’s not to say that we are going to work in a constrained environment.”
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