Overnight Air Tower Too Costly

Although it’s the busiest general aviation airfield in the world, Van Nuys Airport has no air traffic controllers on overnight duty. That policy came under fire last week from airport officials and nearby homeowners in the wake of a crash that killed a pilot trying to land in heavy fog. Robert A. Olson, 32, died when his twin-engine Cessna missed the runway and slammed into a cluster of parked planes.

Olson’s death highlighted long-running concerns over the safety of Van Nuys Airport between 10:45 p.m. and 5:45 a.m., when the tower is not staffed by air traffic controllers from the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA argues that the daily average of 16 landings and takeoffs between those hours doesn’t justify the expense of a controller in the tower. Indeed, the airport’s overnight traffic accounts for about 1% of its 500,000 annual landings and takeoffs--in part because of noise restrictions that limit nighttime activity. Almost no general aviation airports across the country staff their towers around the clock. Some, such as the Quincy, Ill., airport where 14 died in a runway collision, never staff the tower--depending instead on radio contact between pilots and centralized control facilities.

Attention is focused on safety in the days and weeks after an accident like the one that killed Olson. That’s a healthy response that usually produces improvements in procedures or policies. However, it’s unclear that staffing the Van Nuys control tower would make enough of a difference to justify the cost. Olson was in contact with air traffic controllers at an FAA center in San Diego, where controllers monitored him by radar and radio until just two minutes before the plane crashed.

Accident investigators said the San Diego controller failed to check on how the landing went, which explains some of why the accident went undiscovered for four hours. Supporters of a manned tower argue that an on-site controller could have watched the landing and alerted emergency crews of the crash. They also argue that a controller at Van Nuys could have warned Olson of the fog, which already had forced him to divert from Burbank Airport.

Both assertions are true. But others could have done the same things. Airport security officers already monitor overnight flights in and out of Van Nuys. A guard recalled seeing Olson’s plane on its descent but then lost it in the fog. Guards reported fog so thick that they could not safely patrol the airport. A call to the FAA could have warned controllers of those conditions. Granted, such a move would be unorthodox, but it’s time to start thinking about public safety in new ways.

The attention Olson’s death has brought to Van Nuys Airport should not be squandered. Rather than focus on quick solutions to the problems, investigators, officials and homeowners should find new ways of keeping the airport safe and costs down. Plopping a controller into an overnight shift sounds attractive now, but how would it sound a decade from now when questions arise about why a full-time controller is needed to guide a handful of planes on a handful of nights?