Air Traffic Controllers Continue To Sleep On the Job

Everyone needs a nap now and then, but when it's the people who are in control of preventing airplane crashes, it's best if they're on full alert at all times, but reports show that isn't the case.

Air traffic controllers have been caught sleeping on the job previously and new regulations were set in place in hopes of keeping them on their toes, however rules aren't enough to keep air traffic controllers from dozing off and they'r being violated. The Washington Post reports that these rules were violated over 4,000 times according to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) documents.

Last year, several incidents of sleeping air traffic controllers was discovered. Pilots of two late-night flights had to land their planes without assistance at Reagan National Aiport when the controller supervisor fell asleep on his shift. A controller in Knoxville, Tennessee fell asleep for five-hours, leaving seven planes to land without direction. A medical flight carrying a sick patient had to land alone after the controller at a Nevada airport dozed off.

These incident starts happening too often and the FAA promised to get its act together and fix the problem. The FAA fired and suspended several controllers last year and tried to enforce stricter rules about sleeping on the job and allow controllers more time to sleep while off-duty.

However an internal review this year showed that there several violations of the requirement saying that controllers must have at least nine hour breaks between shifts to get in quality rest. The report showed that more than half of airport control towers violated this requirement at least once and some violated it several times, The Washington Post reports.

This nine hour minimum was set in place as investigators found that controllers were not getting enough sleep, some packing a full work week into four days. That practice was supposed to be eliminated to ensure that workers would no longer fall asleep on the job.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood also put an end to shifts in which controllers were working alone overnight, The Washington Post reported.

The FAA also made an agreement with the National Air Traffic Controllers Association that would allow controllers to request for time off if they were too tired to work. All controllers are required to notify their supervisors if they are fatigued.

In response to the new violation, FAA chief operating officer David Grizzle said that the FAA would enforce their rules more tightly as they will update their timekeeping information so that workers won't be able to clock in without having the required nine hour break between shifts.