Politico - The United States’ worst aviation tragedy in more than two decades followed years of alarms about the nation’s hallowed air-safety system — and a series of close calls before luck finally ran out over the Potomac.
The Covid pandemic worsened a nationwide shortage of air traffic controllers, only for demand for air travel to soar once passengers returned. Politically motivated government funding showdowns made it harder to train new workers and replace outmoded safety equipment. And the agency at the center of it all, the Federal Aviation Administration, spent extended stretches without a permanent leader — while investigators expressed warnings about a spike in near-collisions at airports....
One
veteran of the aviation system said the probe would most likely include
an examination of factors that have repeatedly come up in previous close
calls: fatigue, distraction and potential miscommunication.
The country had seen a steep spike in near-collisions involving commercial airplanes at airports, with five incidents in 2022 and 11 incidents in 2023 in which at least one passenger-carrying airplane came close to colliding with another plane or ground vehicle, according to the FAA’s database that tracks these events.
Though 2024 had seen just one airport close call that aviation regulators classified as serious, the FAA was still investigating some incidents before the year’s end. Two passenger jets also had a near-collision scare at Reagan National last year, though the FAA classified the event as less dire.
“We know we have a critical shortage of air traffic controllers, and many of them are forced to work overtime, they’ll often work fatigued — that’s mostly the fault of Congress,” said former Rep. Peter DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat who chaired the House Transportation Committee for four years until 2023.
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