The Federal Aviation Administration is facing scrutiny over flight safety and its recent cuts to staffing, and Democratic senators at a hearing on Wednesday with top agency officials expressed frustration over how little information they’re getting.
In the backdrop of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation’s hearing were recent high-profile incidents, including the crash outside of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in January that killed dozens of people. Also repeatedly mentioned were the recent outages in Newark that left air traffic controllers unable to navigate planes, leading to questions about whether it’s safe to fly to that location.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, the ranking member of the committee, asked Franklin McIntosh, the FAA deputy chief operating officer, why the FAA’s oversight procedures have been failing, given the number of near misses before and after the fatal crash at DCA.
McIntosh responded that they were looking at each incident carefully.
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“We have independent reviews from different levels of the organization to ensure that we don’t have any human biases,” McIntosh said. “And what I mean by that is, we are required to review all events at all of our FAA facilities, so any significant event is required to be entered into a mandatory occurrence report and then a subsequent investigation.”
However, Cantwell then pressed for more information on the agency’s oversight approach.
“What is the FAA doing every day to monitor that situation and say, ‘This is a problem?’” Cantwell said. “This is not, I’m going to call the head of the air traffic controllers union. This is, what is the FAA going to do to fix the system? You’re going to hear a joining theme through all of my questions. This is about this agency playing the aggressive role that we need to play.”
Democratic Sen. Edward Markey brought up recent staffing shortages brought on by cuts targeting probationary employees and buyout offers. The senator said more than 1,000 FAA employees fall under these two categories. Markey then asked all the witnesses for confirmation on how many workers in their departments departed under these circumstances.
“The process of accepting the deferred resignation program is still in process,” Jodi Baker, the deputy associate administrator for aviation safety, said. “We don’t have our final numbers at this point.”
The lawmaker was also unsatisfied.
“I do support cutting fraud and waste and ensuring that the department is operating efficiently,” Markey said. “But the Trump administration is forcing agencies to blindly cut their workforces without regard to merit or experience. They aren’t targeting probation employees because they are the least efficient or effective. They’re targeting them because they’re the easiest to part” with.
“They actually might have had a good role …and given the tragic crash in Washington, D.C. in January and the recent air traffic control outages in Newark, now is not the time to be taking chances with personnel levels,” Markey added.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar asked about the agency’s progress when it comes to hitting its hiring goals for air traffic controllers, a workforce that both parties have acknowledged needs to be built up. While she said she understands seeing progress could take time, she expressed frustration at how the cuts could undermine the FAA’s plans to supercharge hiring.
“When the administration engages on attacks on government employees just wholesale, or says, ‘Hey we want everyone to be fired that’s only been there two years,’ or whatever, it is, it doesn’t exactly make it an enticing place to work,” Klobuchar said. “And I hope that you bring that back to the administration in general.”
Last week, the FAA announced a plan to overhaul air traffic controller communications and expedite efforts to recruit more air traffic controllers. Administration officials have said that the plan will help address years of neglect and temporary fixes for air traffic controller technology at a time when there’s high tension regarding air travel safety.
Sen. Ted Cruz, the Republican who chairs the transportation committee, referenced this plan in his opening remarks.
“These upgrades are overdue, and I hope there will be bipartisan support for them,” Cruz said. “I am committed to helping [Transportation Secretary Sean] Duffy get the resources he needs to address acute problems.”
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Torrence Banks is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
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