Cover-Up of Dangerous Errors by 3 in Control Tower Is Confirmed

On three occasions last year, controllers at Southern California’s main air traffic control center either shut off tracking equipment, falsified reports or lied to investigators to cover up the fact that they had allowed planes to fly dangerously close to each other in violation of Federal Aviation Administration standards, the FAA said Thursday.

The FAA, confirming an account by the Orange County Register, described the cases as “especially serious” and highly unusual. They said one controller had resigned and two others had been disciplined.

The incidents took place last February at the FAA’s Air Route Traffic Control Center in Palmdale, which directs all high-altitude flights in Southern California.

At issue in each of the three incidents was the controller’s alleged attempt to hide the fact that he or she had allowed two planes to come within less than five miles horizontally of each other. FAA standards dictate that controllers must maintain the horizontal separation as well as a 1,000-foot vertical separation.

Such errors--and the name of the controller responsible for them--are automatically recorded by the FAA’s Operational Error Detection System. Introduced in 1984, the system issues an alert whenever two airplanes tracked by radar appear to be on a collision course. If the planes come closer than five miles, a traffic control supervisor is automatically notified.

Any controller found responsible for such a mistake faces possible disciplinary action.

In each of the three cases that occurred at Palmdale last February, it was the error-detection system that identified the controller. Without the system, such errors would often go unnoticed unless a pilot complained about other aircraft coming too close.

A veteran controller at the Palmdale center, speaking on condition that his name not be used, said many controllers believe the error-detection system reports some situations that are not truly hazardous. For that reason--and out of fear of being disciplined--controllers occasionally try to manipulate the system, the controller said.

“I’ve seen it happen maybe five times in the last year, and never where safety was truly threatened,” the controller said. “It’s not commonplace.”

The controller said that before the system was installed, many of his colleagues could on occasion safely let planes get within less than five miles. The system, he said, has “over-restricted” airspace by requiring artificially high amounts of traffic separation.

In describing the three incidents, the Register quoted FAA investigative reports as stating that:

Last Feb. 8, after a controller at the Palmdale center misread an altitude indicator, a six-passenger plane and a 15-passenger Beechcraft came within a mile of each other before their flight paths were altered. A controller involved in the incident subsequently lied to his supervisor about the status of one of the airplanes, FAA investigators determined.

On Feb. 13, a DC-9 with 105 passengers and a 12-passenger private jet came within 2 1/2 miles of each other and were on a collision course. The conflict-alert system went off three times, warning the controller responsible for the planes, but each time the controller turned off the alert to try to conceal his original error. Later, the controller falsified a document submitted to FAA investigators.

On Feb. 16, an 18-passenger Skywest Airlines commuter jet and a six-passenger private plane were within 3.8 miles of each other and on a collision course when a controller disabled the conflict-alert mechanism. The controller also removed altitude and ground-speed information from his radar screen--in effect canceling the radar track--to prevent other controllers in the control room from recognizing his errors.

That controller resigned after the FAA prepared a letter proposing his removal, the agency said Thursday. In the other two cases, the controllers were disciplined. FAA officials would say only that in one of those cases discipline consisted of a letter of reprimand and additional training.