NATCA Honors Controllers For Quick Thinking And Lifesaving Decision Making At Archie League Awards

[Omaha Steve]

http://nhlabornews.com/2014/03/natca-honors-controllers-for-quick-thinking-and-lifesaving-decision-making-at-archie-league-awards/

Posted by Matt Murray



NATCA President Paul Rinaldi.
Image via NATCA on FLICKR, Credit Douglas Jones

Last week I was honored to attend the National Air Traffic Controllers Association’s (NATCA) premier safety convention, ‘Communicating For Safety’ (CFS). The annual event drew 1,400 people from across the country. Attendees included hundreds of NATCA air traffic controllers, FAA management, and hundreds more from the aviation industry worldwide.

CFS is broken into two parts. One part is a convention where NATCA, the FAA, and the aviation industry show how they are working together to make the National Airspace System more efficient and safer for everyone involved. The second part is NATCA’s Archie League Medal of Safety Awards, which highlights some of the best lifesaving moments by NATCA controllers from across the country.

The safety convention part of CFS was as diverse as the people who attended the convention. They had industry leaders, like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, who talked about new equipment they are designing to make it easier for controllers to interface with their radar equipment.

NATCA President Paul Rinaldi spoke at length about the political issues facing the National Airspace System. NATCA and many other unions have been pushing back against the ‘sequester’ that is slowly starving federal organizations like the FAA. The political gridlock in Washington is making it harder for controllers to do their jobs: major staffing shortages, cuts to equipment acquisitions budgets, and cuts to general maintenance budgets. Politicians are putting unnecessary risk into the world’s most complex – but still the safest – air traffic system in the world.


The entire crew of the SFO Airport Tower on the tragic day, in no particular order:
David Caldwell, Dan Ferlito, Nicole Findlay, Russell Kipker, Dawn McMullin, Fred Naujoks, Joseph Okuda, Peter Sachs, and Alexis Shirkey.
Image via NATCA on FLICKR, Credit Douglas Jones

FULL story at link.