Birmingham air traffic controllers disagree with federal aviation officials that safety was not at risk for airplanes operating Jan. 17 at Birmingham's airport when radar and telecommunications services were lost for several hours.
Scott Pressley, president of the air traffic control union in Birmingham, on Thursday said "safety was definitely compromised" when radar scopes at Birmingham's Terminal Radar Approach Control and Tower, went blank while several airplanes were in the sky.
The system went down about 4:45 p.m. and was out more than five hours, delaying 15 departing flights and numerous arrivals. The Federal Aviation Administration said the disruption occurred when workers intentionally turned off the Birmingham radar system to do construction that's part of developing FAA Telecommunications Infrastructure into one system.
There was no risk to airplane operations because Birmingham air traffic controllers used nonradar procedures for which they are trained, Kathleen Bergen, FAA's regional spokeswoman in Atlanta, said Thursday.
The situation that night was not ideal but "the controllers are trained for any contingency," she said. "They do an outstanding job at Birmingham and throughout the system." If there's any question about what to do, she said, they can immediately stop all departures and arrivals until they can assess the situation and then proceed.
Pressley disagreed. "When FAA says that safety wasn't compromised, it trivializes what we do as their traffic controllers," Pressley said. "And safety was definitely compromised and it was the air traffic controllers and the compliance of the pilots that ensured the safety that day, not the FAA."
Bergen said technical problems disrupted long-range radar feeds from FAA's long-range radar antenna in Haleyville and Montgomery to Birmingham International Airport. The loss of radar created an additional workload for the airport's federal workers.
Pressley said the two long-range radar antennas, which cover a 200-mile radius, provide backup radar for Birmingham. "Right now, we have no secondary system because that's what we're using" since the airport's primary radar, which covers a 50-mile radius, has been down since January.
FAA is raising the radar antenna, he said, because trees around it are blocking part of the view for low altitudes.
Bergen said the airport's radar antenna will return to operation Feb. 26.
Also Jan. 17, a shift did not occur in air space coverage under a plan involving the Air Traffic Enroute Control Center near Atlanta, she said.
Pressley said his co-workers that night discovered a difference in the backup plans for Birmingham and the Atlanta center. When Birmingham loses radar, the en route center is to "take over our air space and we just run the tower.... They wouldn't take the air space, so we had to continue running that air space without the radar when they could see it perfectly well," he said.
"The controllers in Atlanta knew how unsafe the situation was and they were trying to help us ... and their managers wouldn't allow them to help us," he said. "We kind of had to make up the rules as we went."
Bergen said the agreement calls for the Atlanta center to cover air space above 7,000 feet because of Alabama's hilly terrain. Since Birmingham controllers are familiar with nonradar procedures and the area, she said, "the decision was made that they could implement the nonradar procedures for flights below 7,000 feet. The controllers in Atlanta could not work nonradar at those low altitudes."
Source: Everything Alabama
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