Air traffic control mistake allowance.?

Question

Does any one how many “near misses” ATCs can have before being suspended or fired? Watching Pushing Tin someone stated that three near misses in 2 ½ years gets you yanked, but that seems like it is a hard standard to live up to. Also if you are about to have an accident are there systems in place which warn you?

Answer 1

Hello,

You are asking about radar positions. This does not include the guy who watches the airport from the tower. TRACONs - Terminal Radar Approach Control and ARTCCs - Air Route Traffic Control Centers are facilities in which numerous controllers work to a.) prevent a collision between aircraft and b.) organize and expedite the flow of traffic. Radar air traffic control involves a ground-based radar unit which captures signals sent from airborne aircraft, which display magnetic headings, altitude, and airspeed. This data is sent to the scope of a radar controller in what is known to ATC as a datatag. There is one datatag for each airborne aircraft.

Conflicts are situations in which two datatags come too close together. In TRACON facilities, "too close" is defined as aircraft within lateral or longitudinal boundaries - three nautical miles or one thousand feet respectively. In the ARTCC environment, which controls mostly aircraft en-route to their destination, separation is five nautical miles horizontally and:

Vertical Separation

- Up to and including FL290 = 1,000 feet.

- Above 29,000 feet = 2,000 feet.

- Above 60,000 between military aircraft = 5,000 feet.

The computers within the radar scope that the controller sees automatically determines if two or more aircraft come into those boundaries. If that happens, a loud noise is emitted and the two or more subject datatags become red. That is known as a conflict alert. This is exactly what happens to a controller in Pushing Tin.

It is true that after three conflicts controllers are fired. The 2.5 year wait is questionable; I'm not sure. Pushing Tin was made before the terrorist attacks on 9/11/01, therefore many changes have been made to the air traffic control and aviation rules throughout the United States since then.

The thing that is easy to overlook about controller conflicts is that actual people are onboard those airplanes, which are represented by a small .5x.5 inch datatag on a scope the size of a 17-inch monitor. By getting a conflict, a controller puts A LOT of people in danger. It is critical for controllers to avoid conflicts at all costs; that is what they are trained to do.

Many controllers go without conflicts for their entire careers. It is an often hard standard, but it is also one that has to be put in place. If controllers didn't have these rules, there would probably be many more aviation accidents than there are today.

If you have any more ATC questions, e-mail me. [e-mail].