We Talked To Air Traffic Controllers. What We Heard Will Shock You.

Why do planes keep almost colliding on the runway?

By Brooke Shuman, More Perfect Union

You may have heard last year about the rise in close calls and runway incursions among major commercial airlines. On February 4, 2023, a plane from Southwest came within 100 feet of a FedEx cargo plane in Austin after an air traffic controller accidentally cleared the two flights to use the same runway. Just over a week after that, a plane from Spirit Airline came within 200 feet of a cargo plane in Miami. The New York Times released an investigation that showed that these almost-collisions were happening multiple times a week—more than 300 in the previous fiscal year. 

The United States is known for having one of the most advanced and safest air systems in the world. So what was going on? Shortly after the Times released its report, an ATC who wanted to remain anonymous sent us an email on a burner account. 

“We have been watching the flight attendants, pilots, UPS drivers, and many other groups fight for fair working conditions and livable wages,” the controller wrote. “We have been pressured into working harder and doing it for less for far too long, but we aren't allowed to take a stand and fight for better. We are tired.”

We reached out to this ATC and she didn’t want to go on record, but we were able to speak to a dozen more on the condition of anonymity. All of them confirmed what this first controller told us: the FAA was dangerously understaffed, and had been for over a decade. 

For every close call, there is an incident report. These reports are littered with clues as to what’s happening in control towers. Air traffic controllers report working 10-hour shifts, 6 days a week, year-round, with overtime shifts on top of that in some cases. Short-staffing has been an issue at most facilities for years, but has been exacerbated by a slowdown in training during the COVID-19 pandemic and an uptick in commercial air travel as the pandemic has waned. “We're having our ‘evening rush’ on crack,” one incident report read. “I can barely work it sometimes, which is why I'm filling out this report. I was working a combined position because we were, you guessed it, short-staffed.”

These mandatory 6-day weeks, combined with irregular shifts, make it impossible to have a normal sleep schedule or, frankly, a life outside of work. Multiple ATCs that we spoke with reported that this unrelenting schedule with forced overtime was creating stress and anxiety, as well as depression. 

“ATCs are known for being functional alcoholics.” one controller told us. “I would have 5 to 6 drinks per night. When I got home from a shift, I would grab a glass of vodka before my bag even hit the floor.”

Ultimately, controllers across the country are worried that one of these near misses won’t be a miss. “I guarantee there will be a collision in the next three years if something doesn’t change,” one told More Perfect Union.

What is causing the understaffing crisis? Bill McGee, aviation expert at the American Economics Liberties Project, told us that while the job has always been high-stakes and required an exacting level of precision, it’s gotten much more challenging in recent years. “The fact is, we have been understaffed and under-resourced at the Federal Aviation Administration for more than 40 years,” McGee said, “And quite frankly, in my view, it's shameful.”

McGee traces the current crisis to the 1981 Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) strike, when 13,000 air traffic controllers went on strike for better wages and working conditions. Federal employees aren’t allowed to strike under the Taft-Hartley Act, but no president had ever responded to a strike the way President Reagan would then: just two days after the strike began, he laid off over 11,000 striking controllers, and arrested a few union leaders. The mass layoff caused cyclical staffing shortages but the real legacy of the strike is how Reagan successfully tamed (and decertified) PATCO, along with the broader labor movement. “I think it's impossible to underestimate how huge the PATCO strike was, not just in aviation circles, but in labor itself,” McGee said. “The Reagan administration deliberately set out to break the labor movement in the United States.”

In our conversations with controllers, we spoke with three who had lost their medical clearance in order to seek treatment for depression and anxiety. Each cited stresses of the job, as well as challenges in their personal or family life, as reasons for taking leave. “If you or I worked at any job six days per week straight for a year, you would go insane. You would have mental health issues, certifiable.” 

Controllers described a draconian process of seeking treatment. Because of the nature of their work, controllers are held to a high standard of physical and mental health. For accessing medication like SSRIs (there are currently five FAA-approved medications, taken alone, for treating depression), controllers are removed from their duties for between six months to a year before they can return to the control tower. “If you have to change your dosage,” one controller told More Perfect Union, “the clock starts over.” Some controllers are assigned administrative duties when they have lost their medical clearance, but a controller who worked at a smaller facility told us they were on leave, unpaid, for nearly six months after they ran through their sick leave.

The prospect of losing work, or your medical clearance, can lead controllers not to seek help at all, or to self-medicate. “Right now the medical screening system, in a lot of ways, is dichotomous: the personnel is fit to perform their duties or they're not fit to perform their duties,” says Dr. William Hoffman, a neurologist who studies mental health in aviation. “For example, if someone is prone to having seizures, the personnel would be unable to perform their duties. But mental health is more complicated because what we're looking for is more subtle incapacitation.” In Hoffman’s study of pilots, he found that 56 percent had avoided seeking medical treatment because of fear of losing their aviation certificate. The National Transportation Safety Board held a summit on mental health in aviation in December, with an emphasis on pilot mental health. “Ultimately the regulator reports to the public,” Hoffman says, “but I think this speaks to the opportunity to increase the precision of air medical screening. How do we pull the personnel from the system that actually need to be pulled, and how do we allow people to remain in the system that are fit to do so while lowering the barriers to care?”

Since the Times investigation was released, there have been news reports, summits, and hearings. We’ll likely know in less than a month how Congress will choose to act. A temporary extension of the FAA’s previous five-year authorization expires on March 8, and lawmakers have been working on a new reauthorization.

The current proposal would update equipment and fund the training of 3,000 new controllers in the next five years, which controllers we spoke with say are badly needed. The bill will now return to the House, but both the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) and the American Economics Liberties Project say it doesn’t go far enough to meet the staffing needs at air traffic controller facilities, 77 percent of which are estimated to be understaffed. Getting controllers trained and certified can take years, and NATCA recommends the FAA set a ‘maximum hiring’ provision, which the House passed but the Senate removed from the Act.

“In 2023, air traffic control suddenly became front-page news,” said Bill McGee. “Suddenly Congress and the media and the public are all saying: ‘We need answers. How did this happen?’ Well, it's not a mystery. In many cases, it's happened because we have chosen as a nation to underfund our aviation system. Are we gonna do something about it? Or do we have to wait for more tragedies?”

Watch our full video report on this story—the latest in our Class Room series—here:

If you are struggling with mental health or substance abuse, call the National Helpline for free, confidential treatment referral at 1-800-662-4357 or go to the SAMHSA website.