HOW SAFE IS LAX?
“How Safe Is LAX?” omitted one huge factor regarding today’s debacle: the Professional Air Traffic Controller Organization strike of 1981 and President Reagan’s cavalier attitude toward labor, which launched us into a decade of greed. Air-traffic-controller staffing levels are still not up to pre-strike levels, and the volume of air traffic has doubled since deregulation. The problems facing controllers today, such as forced overtime and archaic equipment, are precisely those that led to the PATCO strike. And, as Barry Schiff said, “the FAA has just added Band-Aids.”
Please give pilots some credit for the superb safety record in the United States. This is not meant to demean controllers, but to my knowledge no controller has ever been killed due to pilot error. We in the cockpit have the final authority and will do whatever it takes to safely complete a flight.
DEAN CHANTILES
Palm Springs
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