One of the air traffic controllers at the Washington D.C. National Airport was reportedly doing the work of two employees before the deadly mid-air collision that killed dozens of people Wednesday night.
According to the New York Times , staffing at the airport's control tower on Wednesday was "not normal for the time of day and the volume of traffic." The paper cited an internal preliminary safety report from the Federal Aviation Administration (F.A.
A.), which apparently mentioned that one unnamed air traffic controller who was communicating with helicopters was also " instructing planes that were landing and departing from its runways." Typically, those jobs are assigned to two controllers, rather than one.
CNN reporter Omar Jimenez corroborated that reporting on Thursday. He tweeted that an unnamed "air traffic control source" confided to the network's transportation reporter Pete Muntean: "there was one air traffic controller working two different tower positions at the time of the collision Wednesday night." READ MORE: 'Sickening': Senator says Trump's DEI 'blame game' means he's 'afraid to answer questions' The Times reported that the reason there are usually two air traffic controllers handling communication between planes and helicopters is that pilots of those aircraft can sometimes use different radio frequencies.
This means that sometimes helicopter and airline pilots may not be able to hear each other, which adds layers of complication if just one lone controller .