Sen. Murray Challenges FAA’s “Biographical Test” for New Controllers, Reason Foundation

Posted on by

Air Traffic Control Newsletter #111

Robert Poole
March 19, 2014

Sen. Murray Challenges FAA’s “Biographical Test” for New Controllers

In a March 14th hearing of the Senate Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee, Sen. Patty Murray (D, WA) asked probing questions of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx about the FAA’s new controller recruitment effort (about which I wrote last month). Sen. Murray noted the plight of more than 3,000 graduates of the FAA-sponsored Collegiate Training Initiative (CTI) program who have invested years and many thousands of dollars obtaining degrees in aviation and air traffic control. Under the new approach implemented last month, they no longer have first shot at controller training positions. Instead, they must compete with thousands of off-the-street applicants who are required to have no more than a high-school diploma or three years of any kind of work experience.

Even more troubling to her is the requirement that applicants pass a “biographical questionnaire” (BQ) in order to be considered for an opening in the training program. She noted that of the 28,000 people who applied, only 2,200 passed the BQ. Numerous knowledgeable CTI graduates failed the BQ, but cannot find out why. How can this be, she asked Sec. Foxx. The Secretary gave a pretty general reply, saying the agency had noticed that the group of people who apply for controller training “tend to be rather limited,” and that the aim of the new procedure is to try to recruit from a larger population. CTI graduates, he said, will have a leg up during the training—but of course that’s only possible if they have passed the BQ.

Sen. Murray was having none of this. She repeated her concern about highly qualified CTI applicants being turned away due to the BQ, and said that controllers union NATCA is also concerned about this. Nobody understands what the BQ is supposed to measure, or why people are failing. Foxx said that he will have FAA Administrator Michael Huerta respond directly to her on these matters. Just to be sure, the Senator repeated that she wants to find out:

  • Why such a small fraction of applicants are passing the BQ;
  • The current status of the CTI program; and,
  • What this new process is adding to the caliber of the controller workforce. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OrfVpKMQ_c)

Since I wrote last month’s story on this major change in controller recruitment, I have learned that some senior people in the Air Traffic Organization had planned on making CTI the primary source of applicants, and were even considering exempting those CTI graduates who passed the traditional aptitude test from some or all of the training at the FAA Academy (which would save the FAA money). This approach was first suggested by the DOT Inspector General in 2005, and was urged on FAA by Congress in the 2012 reauthorization bill. But now FAA has done just the opposite. From everything I can tell, the new recruitment approach was thought up by the FAA Human Resources department, not the ATO, and therefore does not represent ATO thinking on the best way to ensure a highly qualified 21st century NextGen workforce.

http://reason.org/news/show/air-traffic-control-newsletter-111#e

Controversy Over FAA Controller Hiring and Training, Reason Foundation

Posted on by

Air Traffic Control Newsletter #110

The ATC cross-subsidy dilemma, Controversy over controller hiring and training, Another real-time aviation weather project

Robert Poole
February 4, 2014

Despite thousands of air traffic controllers being eligible to retire over the next few years, the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City has been closed for the past year due to FAA budget problems. As a result, several thousand graduates of two-year and four-year ATC courses at FAA-approved colleges and universities have bided their time on an FAA waiting list, waiting until the agency decided to resume training. But within the past month, FAA has shifted gears, dumped all those applications, and announced plans to recruit candidates “off the street.” Needless to say, those graduates and their schools are up in arms over this—and thereby hangs quite a tale.

Back in 1997 FAA began a program called the Collegiate Training Initiative (CTI), under which it recruited colleges and universities to offer degree courses in air traffic control. Participating schools were told that their graduates would become the primary hiring source for new controllers. Prior to this, applicants were recruited “off the street,” with the only requirements being a high school diploma or three years of work experience. With ATC becoming more and more high-tech, it made sense that FAA sought to increase the competence, knowledge level, and educational level of its NextGen-oriented controller workforce.

In 2005, the DOT Inspector General’s office released a study titled “FAA Has Opportunities to Reduce Academy Training Time and Costs by Increasing Educational Requirements for Newly Hired Air Traffic Controllers” (AV-2006-021, Dec. 7, 2005). The idea was for FAA to shift portions of the coursework taught at the Academy to the CTI schools, and make those courses a prerequisite for employment as a controller. This was consistent with declared policy that CTI graduates would be the primary source of new controllers. The report also pointed out that many professional positions within the federal government require a degree in their area of expertise as a condition of employment. Several former senior officials of the Air Traffic Organization strongly supported this idea when I asked them about it.

But FAA did not take this advice, so in the 2012 FAA reauthorization act, Congress asked the GAO to review the potential cost savings and benefits of shifting basically all the Academy coursework to the 36 CTI schools. Its preliminary report (GAO-12-996R) found that a proper cost-effectiveness analysis of this proposal depended on several cost elements that were not known at that time. It promised further work, with FAA involvement, to be reported on in 2013. But GAO tells me that they stopped work on the project due to FAA plans to pilot-test shifting controller training from the Academy to CTI schools, a plan that FAA has apparently dropped, given what follows.

Due to the 2013 Academy shut-down, between 3,000 and 3,500 CTI graduates were on the FAA waiting list, hoping for the restart of hiring that would send them to the FAA Academy for (partly redundant) coursework, followed by several years of on-the-job training in a tower, TRACON, or en-route center. But in January, all hell broke loose.

Rumors had already been circulating in December that FAA was instead going to issue a general public (“off the street”) announcement early in 2014. CTI schools and graduates were puzzled and upset over why the agency would do this when it already had thousands of college graduates ready to go. The answer turned out to be “diversity.” In a rational world, the FAA Air Traffic Organization would define its controller selection and training requirements, and based on the events recounted above, would very likely have gone with the CTI graduates, even while resisting (for the usual bureaucratic reasons) substituting CTI coursework for Academy coursework. But thanks to the “one FAA” policy instituted in recent years, the ATO depends for its support services on the parent organization—in this case, the FAA Human Resources department.

Last month the FAA HR department informed various diversity organizations about its new FAA Air Traffic Controller Recruitment Campaign. Of course the news leaked and was soon common knowledge to all the CTI schools and their graduates. On Feb. 10th, a 10-day campaign will be launched inviting anyone with a high school diploma or three years of work experience to apply. CTI graduates must re-apply under this program in order to be considered. All applicants must pass two tests in order to be accepted—the normal ATC aptitude test (AT-SAT) and a “biographical test.” The latter is widely believed to be an effort to identify indicators of minority group status.

Previous FAA reports have praised the CTI schools for recruiting and graduating minority candidates, but the resulting numbers graduating from the Academy apparently do not satisfy those running the FAA HR department. While I’ve been inundated with material that is circulating among CTI schools, I decided to see if their concerns about the HR department were shared by other knowledgeable people. I interviewed two retired senior officials of the Air Traffic Organization, both of whom confirmed the CTI assessment. Among the comments from one of them: “This has always been a huge issue for the ATO. HR has total control and generally ignored any ATO input. The atmosphere between HR and ATO was really bad when I was there. Sounds like it is not any different now.”

Where this will end up I have no idea. But it appears to me that a very valuable contribution to better controller selection and training is at risk of being discarded. And that is yet another reason why we need an independent, self-supporting ATO with its own HR staff, accountable to its stakeholder board.

http://reason.org/news/show/air-traffic-control-reform-news-110#b

CTI Student Saves Life, Passenger forced to land plane meets his ‘co-pilots’, CNN

Posted on by

*Lisa Grimm, who is now a FAA manager at the Pittsburgh facility is a graduate of Miami-Dade CC’s CTI program. 

Orlando, Florida (CNN) — “These people saved my family from an almost certain fiery death.”

Doug White speaks highly of the air traffic controllers and flight instructor who helped talk him through landing a plane last year after the pilot died.

He and his family finally met the team last week, after they received the highest honor from the National Air Traffic Controllers Association at a ceremony in Orlando, Florida.

In April 2009, White, 56, and his wife and their two daughters were returning to Louisiana after attending a funeral for White’s brother. Less than 10 minutes after their private chartered plane took off from Marco Island, Florida, the unexpected happened.

“I’ve got to declare an emergency. My pilot’s deceased. I need help,” White told the control tower. He had seized the radio after the pilot had fallen unconscious. “I need to get this on the ground. I’m flyin’ a King Air.”

Luckily, White had three months of flight lessons, but he had flown only a small, less-sophisticated single-engine plane. That’s like going from a Volkswagen to a race car, he said.

In the background of their conversation, dozens of controllers were scrambling to reroute flights while Fort Myers International Airport prepared to accept the plane.

“Disengage the autopilot. We’re gonna have you hand-fly the plane,” instructed controller and experienced pilot Lisa Grimm said.

“You find me the longest, widest runway you can, ma’am,” White responded in a deadpan Louisiana twang.

Controllers in Fort Myers reached out to flight instructor and pilot Kari Sorenson, who was familiar with the King Air plane.

At last week’s reunion, Sorenson said he relayed through the controllers only the most critical information needed to get the plane safely on the ground.

White jokingly accused Sorenson of withholding some information.

“Would you want to have heard it?” Sorensen joked back.

Sorensen had high praise for White’s maneuvering of the twin-engine plane.

“Doug learned to fly that plane in 20 minutes,” Sorensen said. “I don’t think you could have made the plane more complex or the pilot less experienced and have had a successful landing.”

Grimm said she remembered White’s steady demeanor through the whole incident.

“He was like the coolest cucumber,” she said.

Shortly after the pilot slumped over in his seat, White yelled for his wife to come up to the cockpit.

Terry White recalled that she was initially annoyed with her husband’s tone, thinking he wanted her to bring him a soda.

Once she realized the gravity of the situation, “my first thought was my girls,” she said.

At one point, Doug White held out his hand, and Terry said, “You’re not even shaking … and [he] said, ‘I am on the inside.’

“That’s just the way he is,” she said.

There were times, White admitted, when he got nervous.

“I thought they were leaving me out there stranded,” White said. “And it’s real quiet in that airplane when nobody’s talking to you.”

His teenage daughter Maggie White said she felt helpless.

“I mean, what could I do? Nothing, just sit there and pray and, you know, throw up,” she said.

White said he felt a bond with the team of air traffic controllers, as if they had been in combat together.

The White family was shocked to learn during the reunion that they were given only a 5 percent chance of surviving.

The Louisiana pharmacist has gone on to receive his pilot’s license, saying he never wants to be in the same situation again.

“If you’re gonna die, at least die trying not to,” Doug White said.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/03/29/couwels.emergency.landing/