Years of data show US air traffic control system ‘straining at the seams’

(InvestigateTV) — For more than 20 years, Matthew Schofield showed up to work, donned a headset and put the lives of thousands of people into his hands day after day.

“It can be hair raising. It can be satisfying. It can be terrifying,” he said.

As an air traffic controller, Schofield rode the highs and lows of one of the nation’s most stressful jobs – directing aircraft from across the country. He is now part of the solution to address America’s long-troubled air traffic control system.

Now retired, Schofield’s feet are firmly planted on solid ground – in a classroom at Nashua Community College in New Hampshire designed to look like the environment he spent two decades in.

The school is launching a new program to teach the next generation of air traffic controllers at a time when the system is under intense scrutiny, with outdated technology, staff shortages and a series of alarming events leaving many wondering: Is it even safe to fly?

“Our system is straining at the seams,” said John Goglia, a former member of the National Transportation Safety Board turned safety advocate.

The nation’s air traffic control system, responsible for ensuring the safe age of nearly 3 million travelers a day, has long been overtaxed, understaffed and saddled with technology that looks like it was unearthed from a time capsule – creating scenarios that have consistently put flyers at risk, and on some occasions, led to lives being lost.

InvestigateTV analyzed aviation records and data dating back 15 years and found a pattern of problems with air traffic control that has been outlined in thousands of incidents, accidents and close calls across the country.

The records, which include NTSB investigative files as well as confidential reports made to the government by pilots and air traffic controllers themselves, highlight how a system plagued by technological glitches and intense workload demands has pushed controllers to extremes and created major safety issues for years.

“There’s negligence on the part of many of the so-called leaders that have seen these problems and not addressed them,” Goglia said.

DCA crash, communication outages highlight critical need for change

Leaders at the highest levels of government now have no choice but to address the issues surrounding air traffic control. Tragedy and a series of communications snafus have forced their hand.

The scrutiny began more intensely in January, with the deadly crash of an American Airlines regional jet and a military helicopter at Washington, D.C.’s Reagan National Airport. The crash killed 67 people and has shone a harsh spotlight on air traffic controller shortages.

Although the final investigative report on the crash has not yet been released, the NTSB’s preliminary report indicates and multiple news outlets have reported that on the night of the crash, one controller was managing both plane and helicopter traffic – a job that experts say is typically designed for two, especially in complicated airspace.

In the months since the accident, a series of technology outages in air traffic control facilities serving busy airports across the country have also raised alarms.

In April, a 90-second communications blackout at Newark International Airport in New Jersey prompted immediate action by the Federal Aviation istration, with the agency putting limits on the number of flights allowed in and out of the airport as technology upgrades are expedited to resolve ongoing issues, as well as a closed runway.

In May, a similar outage occurred in Denver, and ground stops due to “equipment” issues caused numerous cancelations and delays in Atlanta.

“This does appear to be the tipping point. The fact that we’ve lost those people, needlessly. We’ve had all these meltdowns in not just one location,” Goglia said. “We can no longer kick the can down the road, as the saying goes. We need to sit and fix the problem.”

Air traffic control problems have plagued the country for decades, government data shows

Air traffic control problems are not a recent phenomenon. InvestigateTV analyzed data from hundreds of NTSB investigative reports and found that air traffic control was listed as a cause or contributing factor in at least 135 accidents or incidents dating back to 2010.

Those events include significant close calls, such as the February 2023 incident in Austin, Texas, where a FedEx cargo plane came within 170 feet of hitting a Southwest flight with 128 people onboard. Records show there have been at least 11 midair collisions and five ground or runway collision related to air traffic control.

In 42 of the events InvestigateTV identified, there was at least one fatality, including a 2022 midair collision in North Las Vegas, Nevada, that killed four people.

In that crash, the NTSB determined the air traffic controller was not monitoring the two aircraft despite the airspace having had several recent close calls due to newly-implemented landing patterns, but it also assigned blame to the FAA’s “insufficient staffing of the facility, which required excessive overtime that did not allow for proper controller training or adequate recovery time between shifts.”

The controller involved told NTSB investigators he felt fatigued on the day of the crash — a day when he was working three control positions at once — but that he often felt that way due to the workload he and his colleagues regularly faced.

Investigators were told controllers were averaging 400 to 500 hours of overtime each year, and that cracks in the system were forming well before the crash.

“[The Air Traffic Manager] stated that everyone on the team was exhausted, and that work/life balance was non-existent. It is likely that the cumulative effects of continued deficient staffing, excessive overtime, reduced training, and inadequate recovery time between shifts took a considerable toll on the control tower workforce,” the investigation report states.

Reports to the government’s Aviation Safety Reporting System, which allows pilots, air traffic controllers and others in the aviation field to confidentially log safety concerns, also highlight serious problems in recent years.

InvestigateTV’s analysis found more than 18,000 reports to ASRS since 2010 where at least one safety issue involved air traffic control.

It’s a figure that stunned Goglia, who said: “We shouldn’t have 1,800 in those years, never mind 18,000. That’s just an indication the system is overloaded.”

Across those ASRS reports, pilots and controllers reported more than 3,400 situations where “workload” was a primary or contributing human factor, with nearly 600 reports listing “staffing” as one of the problems.

The data also shows more than 4,000 occasions where air traffic control equipment or facilities were implicated.

The narratives included in the ASRS reports, while redacted to remove identifying information, paint a grim picture, with pilots and controllers laying out their experiences in stark detail.

InvestigateTV found dozens of cases where pilots described narrowly avoiding collisions:

• A December 2024 incident where a pilot reported being forced to perform an escape maneuver as they headed straight toward a mountain, saying, “It was very busy in the traffic pattern and ATC (air traffic controller) seemed to forget . We were headed straight for terrain and I immediately told ATC I needed a vector away from the terrain.”
• A July 2024 incident where a plane was forced to go around seconds before landing after hearing another flight cleared for takeoff. The pilot wrote, “I heard the tower say to another plane, ‘Aircraft Z, I forget – did I clear you to land?’ I hope the tower controller took a break to get his head in the game. This could have been unfortunate.”
• A near collision in April 2022, when a landing plane was forced to abort just 50 feet from touchdown when an air carrier crossed the runway. The report indicates the controller involved was reportedly working multiple positions at once.

But it’s not just those in the air sounding the alarm. InvestigateTV’s analysis found that controllers have repeatedly logged their own experiences of how overloaded staff and faulty equipment have nearly caused a tragedy:

• An April 2024 incident involving a plane in southern California that needed priority handling, but the controller didn’t have the resources available to help, reporting, “The FAA has created an unsafe environment to work and for the flying public. The controllers’ mental health is deteriorating.”
• An October 2023 situation involving a buggy radar control system that led to a near collision that weighed heavily on a controller who reported, “The targets overlapped and were separated by 100 feet. I wanted to leave sick; but there was no staffing to cover it. We are put in these situations daily and this causes extreme stress and fatigue, and our management does not address.”
• A report from September 2024 where a controller blamed a total lack of radar in complicated airspace near Seattle for nearly causing a mid-air crash, writing “We are going to watch a lot of people die one day and I hope I am not working when that happens.”

The struggles of the men and women working in the tower is an emotional subject for Goglia, who said he has seen the toll it takes on controllers.

“We can’t keep destroying people’s lives by ignoring a system that’s not working properly,” he said. “We’ve got to fix it.”

Multi-billion-dollar ATC overhaul plan is in the works, but faces major hurdles

As air traffic controllers shoulder the daily burden and stress, the U.S. Department of Transportation and Congress are also feeling the pressure, trying to find a way to fix the system while also reassuring the public.

“I do want to stress, our airways are safe,” said Congressman Sam Graves, the Missouri Republican who chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

But while Graves told InvestigateTV unequivocally that air travel remains the safest form of transportation, he said he and the current istration recognize that major improvements are needed.

Graves, a pilot himself, is shepherding a plan through Congress that would fund a massive overhaul of the nation’s air traffic control system. The plan was laid out in early May by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who called it a “once-in-a-generation” undertaking that would pour billions of dollars into new radar, telecommunications networks and guidance systems in towers and facilities across the country.

Graves has already gotten a $12 billion down payment on that overhaul plan ed through the House, with some bipartisan help.

However, that funding is part of a larger budget reconciliation bill known to many as the “Big Beautiful Bill,” which is already generating resistance and controversy as it heads to the Senate.

Still, Graves said there are alternative methods at the ready to make sure the upgrade work gets done, and said all sides of aviation are ive of the plan.

“Industry is all on board and labor is completely on board with getting this done. So, you’ve got all of the players out there that are ready to go and ready to get it done. And so that’s one of the reasons why it’s moving very, very quickly,” he said.

Senate approval aside, there’s still a long way to go. Although the Trump istration has called for the modernization of air traffic control to be completed before the end of the president’s term, some experts have said the work could take much longer.

Goglia, the former NTSB member, estimated some aspects could take up to a decade and require reductions in flight service as towers and equipment are upgraded while still directing aircraft.

Graves said he hopes that doesn’t have to happen, but that it will be complicated.

“The analogy is kind of like trying to change your spark plugs on your car while you’re driving down the street,” he said. “You can’t just shut the system down, overhaul it and turn it back on again. We have to continue to operate.”

Filling air traffic controller slots, training recruits will take years

A new-and-improved air traffic system must also have enough air traffic controllers at the ready, and although the current plan does include more than $1 billion in funding to recruit and train controllers, many worry it’s not enough.

Staffing shortages that have plagued the system since the 1980’s when President Reagan fired thousands of air traffic controllers who were striking for higher pay and better working conditions.

Further, labor disputes in the mid-2000s as well as the COVID-19 pandemic have, according to industry representatives, left the system at a nearly 30-year low while air travel demand only continues to increase.

Training those who are willing to step into the tower won’t happen overnight. No one knows that better than Matt Schofield, the retired-controller-turned-instructor at Nashua Community College.

The school is one of several across the country setting up or expanding programs to fill the need for more controllers, and NCC has enrolled a full class for the fall of 2025.

After mastering aviation basics and terminology, they’ll eventually spend months in front of the school’s air traffic control simulator, built to mirror an actual tower, where they will practice with weather indicators, radar, taxiway lights, and frequency boards.

If it happens in real-life aviation, Schofield said he and the others on the team have the technology to replicate it in the simulator, training students for everything from changes in weather to distractions on the runway — and even the whole communications system disappearing from their screens.

“We’re able to simulate it, stop it. Talk about. So, God forbid this does happen in real life — you’ve got that tool in your box. Hopefully you use it,” he said.

It’s critical training that will take years for the first round of students at Nashua to complete. But when they’re through, Schofield said, students will have repeatedly seen every possible scenario they will likely encounter as a controller, learning how to protect the flying public through basic instinct.

It’s a responsibility he takes personally.

“You have the lives of hundreds of people in your hands and millions of dollars in aircraft at any given time,” he said. “We want to teach the next generation to be better than us, to keep us all safe.”

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