FAA Removes 34 Controllers in Drug Probe
Thirty-four air traffic controllers employed at a Palmdale regional center responsible for guiding all airplanes in and out of dozens of Southern California airports have been removed from their jobs because of allegations that they used cocaine and hashish during off-duty hours, the Federal Aviation Administration announced Friday.
Don Early, manager of the Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Center, provided few details of the alleged misconduct. He said no criminal charges have been filed in what he characterized as a continuing federal investigation.
Early insisted that the removal of the controllers will have no significant effect of the safety of air travel.
He said the controllers--31 men and three women--were reassigned to desk jobs Thursday and are being required to take urinalyses to determine if they used drugs. If the tests are positive, the employees face penalties ranging from being placed in rehabilitation programs to dismissal.
A spokesman for an organization that is attempting to unionize air traffic controllers nationwide bitterly criticized the investigation and said it stemmed from an April 17 party in Palmdale that was attended by many of the controllers who were reassigned.
One of the reassigned controllers, who said she hosted the party, said in a telephone interview that no drugs were used there. She said the FAA confronted her with no specific allegations and refused to explain the reason for her reassignment, and said other co-workers were similarly treated.
The fact that the drug accusations involve employees in such sensitive positions seemed likely to increase recent nationwide calls for drug testing of federal employees.
The investigation also focused more unflattering attention on the nation’s 14,000 controllers, most of whom have been hired since 1981, when the federal government fired its entire unionized force after it went on strike. The government’s strategy has been blamed for travel delays and highly stressful working conditions.
Fifth of Crew
The controllers under investigation make up more than one-fifth of the 156 controllers who work at the Palmdale center, one of 22 FAA facilities responsible for communicating with commercial, military and general-aviation planes once they leave the jurisdiction of local airport control towers.
About half of the nation’s controllers work in such regional centers.
The Los Angeles center is responsible for an area extending roughly from Fresno to the Mexican border and from hundreds of miles offshore to southern Utah and the southern half of Nevada.
Center manager Early said there were no signs of suspected drug use in any of the controllers’ professional conduct.
He said allegations of drug use came from “sources both within and outside” the FAA, but declined to discuss the agencies or the circumstances of the alleged drug use.
It was learned that narcotics officers from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Antelope Valley station were involved in the investigation.
‘Safety-Related Duties’
Early said an FAA policy prohibits anyone who uses illegal drugs--whether off or on the job--from working in “safety-related duties.”
While there were no allegations of drug use on the job, “any hint of impropriety that could adversely effect air safety must be treated with utmost seriousness,” he said.
Officials of the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn., who said they have signed up about 4,000 controllers in the hope of being certified as a union, said the allegations were “based on innuendo and hearsay,” and said they expect the controllers to be reinstated after drug tests are analyzed.
Kelly Candaele, western states coordinator of the controllers association, said Friday he had talked to “eight or nine” of the suspected controllers “and they all have flatly denied having used drugs.”
Early declined to comment on the union’s claim that the investigation grew out of the April 17 party.
According to the party’s hostess, who spoke on the condition she not be identified, about 25 of the controllers in question attended the party, which was held to celebrate higher certification rankings recently achieved by the hostess and another controller.
One Guest Arrested
The woman said many controllers believe that what interested investigators was the subsequent arrest of one of the guests at the party, a non-controller employee of the Palmdale center, who was suspected of drug-dealing.
The woman said she and others who attended the party were asked by FAA investigators Thursday about that employee’s presence and asked whether drugs were sold at the party.
“To the best of my knowledge, no drugs were sold there,” said the hostess, who said she does not use drugs. “My dad was there. . . . I just feel that they more or less pulled a lot of people off randomly and are seeing what they could come up with. Basically they’re asking each of us if we know any controllers who use drugs. I think they’re hoping they can get some people to break.”
The hostess said she agreed to take a urine test Thursday, and on Friday consulted an attorney who advised her to take a privately administered test “just for my protection.”
The Los Angeles County district attorney’s Antelope Valley office confirmed that no charges associated with the investigation have been filed, and declined further comment.
Early said the Palmdale case is the first instance in which more than a few controllers in a single center were alleged to be involved in drug use.
‘Additional Information’
He said 12 controllers were reassigned to administrative duties Thursday. Then, later in the day, the FAA “received additional information,” causing 22 more controllers to be similarly reassigned.
The Palmdale center’s 36 supervisors, who are qualified to serve as controllers, will take up the slack caused by the reassignments, although some overtime hours by the remaining staff may also be required, Early said.
Most of the nation’s controllers lost their jobs in 1981 when President Reagan fired 11,400 members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization for violating the law against strikes by government workers.
The FAA, which contended that it had more controllers than it needed at the time of the strike, has gradually increased its work force. There were 14,080 controllers employed by the FAA as of June 30, an increase from the 1984 figure of 13,330, but substantially below the 16,400 employed at the time of the 1981 mass firing.
However, despite the manpower increases, the number of controllers who are rated fully qualified has fallen in recent years.
Not All Fully Qualified
Two years ago, a House of Representatives aviation subcommittee investigating the controllers’ reliability was told that only 72.9% were rated at “full performance level,” meaning they were qualified to operate at any position in the air traffic control system.
Today, according to the General Accounting Office, that percentage has fallen to 64.4%.
A veteran air traffic control supervisor at a Southern California radar control facility serving coastal aircraft said he was shocked by the investigation.
“I’ve never dealt with anyone, either a peer or a colleague or a supervisor, who used any form of psychoactive drug,” said the supervisor, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified.
The possibility of a controller showing up for work under the influence of drugs is minimal, he said, because “it would show up so quick. It would be identified faster than in an operating room. The pressure we work under here, the amount of teamwork that’s involved, it would be like one of the Dodgers showing up on the infield--you think nobody would notice?”
