Word: faa
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Every six months the pilot must pass a demanding FAA physical, and every year the company also looks him over. His job is one of the few in which advancing age is considered an asset, for it means he has been in charge of a jet for a reassuring length of time. A 747 captain often has 20,000 or more hours of flight experience. He flies no more than 65 to 70 hours a month and is paid as much as $100,000 a year. It is safe to say that few people riding behind him in the passenger...
Despite all of these precautions, pilots do occasionally crack up airplanes, and one of the main reasons?a reason that concerns the FAA deeply?is simply that they let their minds wander. In a term of the trade, cockpit discipline breaks down. One chilling example of this occurred on Sept. 11, 1974, when an Eastern DC-9, on a landing approach, hit the ground near Charlotte, N.C. While descending, the pilot?as the flight recorder later showed?chatted amiably about racial integration, Richard Nixon's pardon and the merits of Japanese cars. The pilot and 71 others died...
Since that disaster?and a few other ones caused by pilots' ignoring the warnings of their instrument panels?the FAA and the airlines have worked hard to toughen up the discipline. Most aviation experts believe the efforts have produced good results...
...fear of causing such a crash or a collision ?known with studied casualness as creating an "aluminum shower"?puts the controllers under tremendous strain from the time they clear a jet for takeoff until they guide it to a landing (see diagram). FAA psychological tests have shown that controllers undergo more stress than combat pilots. At Chicago's O'Hare Airport, the world's busiest, they are allowed to work for only 90 minutes at a stretch during peak hours, landing a plane every two minutes while simultaneously keeping track of half a dozen more...
...Hare's controllers suffer from peptic ulcers, and another third have gastric or emotional problems of one kind or another. While they work, the controllers gulp down antacid tablets from jars kept within easy reach. The Chicago branch of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization has sued the FAA, claiming that the O'Hare unit is understaffed, backup equipment is lacking, and training programs are ineffective...