Briefing Session; 504; Aerial Traffic Jam

Five seconds. Stand by. Stand by. Stand by. Stand by. Stand by. Stand by. Stand by. From New York City National Educational Television presents briefing session, the facts behind the issues in the world today. The funds for the production of this program have been provided equally by the AFL-CIO and the National Educational Television and Radio Center. Your host, the noted Washington correspondent of the American Broadcasting Company, Edward P. Morgan. Welcome to the 56th edition of briefing session.

On December 16, 1960, tragedy, a United Airlines DC-8 jetliner and a TWA super constellation were making their way through heavy weather over Metropolitan New York bound for idle wild and LaGuardia airports respectively. At about 10.30 a.m., they collided over Staten Island. The piston engine TWA plummeted down into a marsh on the island. The jet staggered on, crashed in a Brooklyn street. Death toll, 134, the worst commercial aviation disaster in history. The tragedy focused attention once again on the perils of our crowded sky waves. For it was the first one involving two planes, definitely under the control of an air traffic system. Now briefing session will take up this problem of our aerial traffic jam. Our guests, Clarence Sayon, President of the Airline Pilots Association, and Frances McDermott, Executive Director of the Air Traffic Control Association. We'll be hearing from them both in a few

moments. First, for a close-up look at this problem and the way it evolved, here is briefing session's news analyst, John McVeigh. Commercial aviation has become a very big business over the last three decades. The growth from more than 400,000 passengers or less than 400,000 passengers in 1930 to nearly 58 and a half million in 1960. Total distance traveled last year, 39 billion passenger miles, almost 200,000 round trips to the moon. This is an airline map of the United States, indicating the hundreds of routes used daily by 88 domestic and foreign airlines. You can see how tightly they bunch up around the major cities such as Boston, New York, Washington, Chicago, Atlanta. But this map shows only the routes, followed by the airlines, not the amount of

traffic on them. The picture gets even more complicated when we take that into consideration. For example, this is the most heavily traveled air corridor over any part of the United States, the stretch between Boston and Washington. At least 14 major airlines run flights, not counting the incoming overseas traffic pouring in across the Atlantic from nearly 20 more lines. The mushrooming growth of air travel began about 30 years ago when commercial aviation came of age. It followed hard on the heels of the first old email contracts after the government itself stopped flying the mail. In the early 30s, these biplane passenger liners were the latest thing. The New York Chicago flight of eight hours with stops in Cleveland and Buffalo was advertised as the wonder of the age. After 1933, commercial aviation received a tremendous boost to the advent of the DC-3, a faithful workhorse that flew millions

of domestic miles before and during the war. By 1935, the airways began to become overcrowded with the sprouting of new routes. That year, the airlines asked the Bureau of Air Commerce to create a system of air traffic separation. The airlines themselves set up the first air traffic control system at Newark, New Jersey. And in 1936, the Bureau took over the control of air traffic. The big spit in air travel came after World War II, an air-minded public demanded newer faster transportation, aircraft manufacturers met the demand. And by the late 50s, jet travel was well on the way in. Speeds and excess of 600 miles an hour, New York to Los Angeles in less than five hours. Europe only an afternoon's trip away. New airports were coming into handler jets, but the load and the older ones grew greater all the time. La Guadir in New York, for instance, built to handle the traffic of the 30s, now

landing and taking off 716 planes a day. The air traffic control system designed and first put into use back in 1936 is still being employed with some modifications, despite the spectacular growth in air travel made since then. It works this way. Each plane in contact with ground stations by radio is wrapped in a package of flying time 10 minutes long, 10 miles wide, and 1,000 feet high. By making sure it stays on course and at the required altitude, air traffic control operators were able to make sure it stays out of similar flight boxes of other planes in the sky at the same time. After World War II, radar was added to the control system using this new tool, the operators and the ground were able to reduce the flight box to a three mile radius of air, 1,000 feet deep. But this system was set up originally to handle DC

IIIs, flying at 180 miles an hour. Today it embraces 360 mile an hour electros, 300 mile an hour constellations like the one that crashed on Staten Island, and a half dozen other types in the same speed brackets. Even the jets fall under similar controls, despite their 600 miles an hour speed and still another factor, the ground control system applies only to planes flying on instruments. Not those operating on visual flight rules and excludes the thousands of small private planes flitting in and out of countless airports around the country. This is a New York air traffic center operating out of La Guadilla Airport. In all, there are about 35 of them more or less similar in operation across the country, in addition to the 228 control towers and other traffic

control facilities. The staff of each one includes supervisors, radar operators and manual controllers. They have flight plans filed by planes taking off to guide them and are alerted to arrival times of incoming aircraft. Operators try to follow the aircraft on radar scopes as they move through the area, but sometimes a controller can't follow the blip. It is his plane until he gets the pilot to perform an unusual maneuver and checks the scope to make sure he's watching the right blip. Electronics help out in all the major centers. Computers quickly work out information passage from one center to the next as planes move from one area of control to another. Even so, the high speed jets are difficult to keep up with. Another handy cap is the current two-dimensional radar equipment capable of locating a plane's position over the landscape, but not its height. No more complex three-dimensional radar now is undergoing tests at the

Federal Aviation Agency's research center at Atlantic City, but at best it's not expected to be ready for service before 1962. General Elwood Kessada, who retired in January after two years at the head of the FAA, said shortly before leaving office that the nation's air traffic control system is 10 years out of date. We'll need more than 10 years to catch up. Kessada estimates it would now cost $150 million a year for 10 years to bring the system up to date. This is $32 million more than a 1960 budget for establishing air navigation facilities. Another obstacle, according to the retiring FAA chief, is opposition in the aviation industry itself. Meanwhile, the situation is growing steadily more complex and dangerous. In 1958, airline crashes in the United States took the lives of 129 passengers and crew members.

In 1959, the total was 226. In 1960, it rose to 364. Let's return now to Edward Morgan and I guess. One final fact before we start our discussion. In 1960, the number of jet transports and service increased to 169 nearly double that of last year. Clearly, the problem is multiplying faster than the answers are coming in. Gentlemen, I think you might agree that although the public can be blamed for apathy in a number of fields, the responsibility that we give the government, the support we give the government in problems overseas and that sort of thing, the public clearly is not responsible here and is sort of a helpless captive passenger, so to speak. From the briefing and from my experience as a lay passenger, I get the definite impression that we are behind in air safety. Mr. McDermott, who is to blame?

It's difficult to say individually who's to blame, but I think collectively a large number of people are to blame. I think the problem over the last 15 years in attacking air traffic control has been to attack it as a simple engineering problem. It's a moving three-dimensional problem. All the parts of the system can be measured, their movement, their progress, and we can anticipate their forward motion. Therefore, it's the kind of a problem that the trained scientific mind can analyze, reduce to a computer, and solve. Therefore, every team that's been formed during the last 15 years to attack this problem has been dominated by engineers. The voice of the practical air traffic control simply hasn't been heard. That's where your association comes in. You're more or less an informal group, a professional group, and which will have a voice, you hope. We think that we have, we think we should have, because the job of air traffic control has become one of the most complex and demanding professions in aviation today. We think we have a

place on the team, we've taken that place, we intend to stay on it from here on out. Mr. Sain, as head of the pilots association, would you say assuming that we are behind in air safety, that $150 million a year as General Cassada recommends is realistic too much or too little? Well, I think the figure that General Cassada is referring to is $150 million a year, only for the single purpose of what we call, technically, the establishment of very navigational facilities. This is only to buy known facilities that can be purchased at the present time to be added to the present air traffic control system. It doesn't include that portion of the budget, which goes for future research, which is some $50 million a year for air traffic control and other air safety areas. Now, I think we have to go a little deeper into this problem though. You said the public was not blamed for apathy, but I would disagree with you. The public and its representatives must assume some of the responsibility here. We've been warning for 10 or 12 years or

more that the air traffic control system and the airport system of this country, and you have to take them together. There's no use building any efficient airway between two areas and leave a bottle naked both ends. So the airport system is part of the traffic control system and must be viewed as such. But if you go back and look at the record, surely, we've had appropriations last year, and we'll probably get appropriations this year, but this is against 10 or 12 years of practically no appropriations for this purpose. If you go back to the appropriations for our establishment of air traffic control, so air navigational facilities, over the last 10 years, you'll find that the average per year was $23 million. Why have we been so apathetic? I stand corrected with your contrary statement, Mr. Sayon. We don't particularly enjoy killing ourselves. Why have we let the situation come to what it has?

Well, there were a number of reasons. One of which was a governmental structure, under which the agency responsible for the airway system was more or less buried within the government structure. And the individual responsible, the administrator of civil aeronautics, could not go directly to the president or directly to the congress with his problems. He had to go through a series of layers of government agencies. The old civil aeronautics administration was under the Department of Commerce, and there it was lumped with many other activities. So the administrator would have to go to the Undersecretary of Commerce and end of the Secretary of Commerce with his problems. And then somehow the problem would begin to get to Congress or to the president. Now that we were able improvements on that now. Yes, it's a project in which my association worked for 18 years, which was the Federal Aviation Act of 1958, which made the FAA an independent agency where the administrator could go directly to the president and directly to the congress. And it was with this, plus a series of disastrous acts in starting with Grand Canyon,

that we've begun to get some appropriations. Do you believe Mr. McDermott that as it stands on paper at least, the governmental structure, as Mr. Sayon uses the phrase, is sufficient, and you can bill from that or do you need some further reorganization in the federal government? I think we definitely need some reorganization within the Federal Aviation Agency. I think the agency itself has enough authority. And I think that they can get all of the funds that they need. Congress is simply waiting for them to tell them how much money they need to solve this problem. But again, within the Federal Aviation Agency, the dominance has appeared on the engineering side. I feel that we have to work together. Everyone, pilots, controllers, and engineers is a team to solve this thing. But the engineers in the research department are charged now with responsibility for specifying the requirements. Well, this job of air traffic control is an extremely complex thing. And you can't specify the requirements unless you really understand the problem.

Aren't you really saying, Mr. McDermott, that if you get some driving but understanding force at the top of, say, the FAA, you will get some action and you will get it in the proper dimension? I think, frankly, if Mr. Cassada had devoted his tremendous energy to the problem of air traffic control, who would be in far better shape today, then we are. I think that he probably had some poor advice. He diverted his attention to some relatively minor problems and generated a lot of side issues. And in the final analysis, neglected the principal problem of air traffic control. Now, General Cassada seems to have been fairly sharply critical of almost every aspect of aviation, including your association, Mr. Sayon, but he didn't spare industry either. He said on occasion that industry itself was to blame. This hits me as a person who flies the airlines constantly as a reporter. And I remember one thing that I want to bring in as an example. I don't know

whether it's valid. It was determined after a series of crashes with the electorate jet that there was a structural defect in the wing, as I recall it. And I, as a rather careless member of the public, got the impression that after that was found, these defects were ordered changed, corrected. Later, it developed that they were just beginning to correct them and that they were continuing to fly the planes, but at a reduced speed. Now, is this an instance where industry is validly criticizable? Well, I think the first that Mr. Cassada criticized everybody but himself. He was the great savior of the public, at least from his public relations, departments, view, and everybody else was wrong, and he was right. As a matter of fact, we supported Mr. Cassada on many of his projects, more projects than we opposed him, but he loved praise and he couldn't stand the criticism. So those are the subjects that got publicity. But I think the

basic problem here, where he's criticized the airlines and other people, proposing him, was they opposed him when they could not see any overall plan. People didn't want to invest millions of dollars in some project when they didn't know where the project was going. And again, this is the problem with air traffic control and the airway system and the airport system. Unless there's some long-term plan where when you make a large investment in airborne equipment, you know that it will fit into the program. And it will fit into the program over a number of years. But again, this is one of the difficulties. The air traffic control system is a patchwork, where we put one patch on top of another patch, on top of another patch, without knowing exactly where we were going with the overall system. And this is the reason where people were not anxious to embrace some of the concepts or to make large investments in equipment, which they weren't sure would fit into the plan, or the whole thing might not be changed in two or three years from that time. Mr. McDermott, as we've agreed, the general's

criticisms have been fairly all-inclusive. And I want to ask you to answer this one first, and then Mr. Saiyan can get a crack at it too. I believe he sharply criticized the airline pilot's association position, protesting the enforcement, the enforced retirement of jet pilots at the age of 60. Do you feel that this is an unjustified stand-to-take and view of the high complications required of a pilot and the slowdown in reflexes as a man grows older? My own personal reaction and the pilot's responsibility is out of my field, but I don't think that Mr. Kassada would have encountered any serious objection to establishing 60 as a retirement age for pilots. If he had gone to the pilots and worked this thing out, I believe it was the rather arbitrary manner in which it was announced. As far as controllers are concerned, we've taken a very positive stand that a man may be able to fly an airplane

until he's 60 years old, but a man is not going to control traffic in the LaGuardia center or the Chicago Tower until he's 60. And we are urging right now that some medical studies be undertaken, as a matter of fact, Congress told the FAA two years ago to study this problem and find out just what sort of an environment a controller needs to work in and just how long he can continue at the pace that he presently maintains. Just a side issue on that, controllers have for the last 15 years worked a straight eight-hour period without a designated lunch relief period. Many times they would come in with their sandwiches, work for eight solid hours, take their sign, which is home with them. Congress recognized this two or three years ago and they passed the act, they told the FAA do something about this because this is primitive. This condition has still not been corrected. So there's something wrong with the leadership or the direction of the program. Have you got an identity of that in terms of the 60 retirement level? I agree with Frank that the great indignation of the pilots was over the method utilized. The arbitrary rule

to retire pilots at 60 was adopted without any hearings, without any evidence, without any investigation, and after statement having been made but before you could even contemplate such a rule to require two or three years of study. It was taken also on the heels of a study that had been made, a comprehensive study that had been made by an independent agency under government contract for several rears, which had come to the conclusion that there was no basis for it. Because you see a pilot to fly at 60 must meet the same proficiency and competency standards as a pilot of 20 or a pilot of 25. And it's a little bit like saying when you're dying of some disease in which there's only one good doctor that could cure it and he's about to operate and you say, but he's 70 years old, I can't let him operate. I've got to bring in some new fellows who's never done this, but he's very vigorous. In other words, the man at 60 has got to cut the mustard if he flunkes he's out. The pilot is checked every six months, at least, both for his physical condition and for his competency. And he must meet the current standards for physical standards

and the current standards of competency, unlike any other profession. And it's down usual individual who will have this at 60 because most pilots, one out of 10 will be retired by 25. You've got two things here as I see it. Human potential and human failure and mechanical proficiency and getting the instruments. From the public point of view, you've also got something else that's pretty stark with more and more airlines adopting turbo jets and jets. Here, you've got a situation as I understand it. If two jet airplanes are approaching each other, their maximum speed is something like 1,200 miles an hour. And if one should happen to see the other, they're traveling so fast that they couldn't get out of the way anyway. Now, taking that as an accomplished possibility, what do we do? We establish a system of positive control for aircraft that have that kind of thing now. Are we doing that now, Mr. McDermott? We are doing it to a limited extent, but we haven't included the military in this. Have they been reached out

to? Do they want to run it their own way? Is that the idea? I think they've thrown up some road blocks. I think also, though, that the FAA has not vigorously attacked the traffic control problem to get the kind of tools that would make this possible to do at present time. Of course, the ideal solution to this problem would be if we could, by research, produce something in the airplane that would give the airplane the same capacity as you have in your automobile or the captain has in his ship, a sea, and that is self-contained device. If you could get some extension of the pilot's eyes airborne so that he himself could maintain clearance between other aircraft, this would be the most economical, the cheapest, the most efficient means. Is this possible, Mr. Sir? Well, there's research going on, and we think it's possible somewhere down the line. It hasn't been developed or perfected to reliability as yet. In the absence of this, I agree with Frank. You have to have a positive system of control by which you can maintain clearance by means other than visual means. But at the present time, we've got some people flying

by visual means. When we know it's impossible to maintain clearance visually with people who are attempting to maintain. Well, are you saying as a pilot that the FAA should adopt a rigid standard throughout and you fly on instruments or you fly via control everywhere, whether it's military, whether it's a private cub, or whatever it is? No, but in those areas where it's impossible to maintain separation between aircraft by visual means, we must have assistance if we're going to carry out our statutory responsibility for safety. If we say, frankly, we cannot maintain clearance here by visual means. There's no way to do it. And we must have some other means. And the only means available at the present time is positive separation. Mr. McDermott, this is, I'm getting a little bit of boost flesh here and I perhaps need a little psychological helping hand. All of us are going out of the studio later and probably the chances are taking airplanes to different directions. Should we be scared to death or not? Not at all.

And I think that the passengers can ride with a high degree of assurance as far as their safety is concerned because of the kind of people that are in air traffic control today. These are relatively young men. They haven't been in it too long. We've had a fairly high incidence of people cracking up, heart attacks, ulcers, this sort of thing. The traffic control job itself hasn't been in existence long enough to have a high incidence of older men who are going through this sort of thing. It's safe today because these men are working eight hours without a lunch period and because they're dedicated to this sort of thing. But we've got to do something more right now. We have to make this job attractive so that we can continue to get confident men to come in here. People look at the job of air traffic control and the environment that is provided present time and they say, I wouldn't do that for a million dollars. There's not a speaking of a million dollars. There isn't enough financial inducement for one thing apart from the job security. Well, the pay is not paramount. There could be a lot done in the way of pay. But such things

as retirement, hours of service, providing them the kind of tools so that they can do their job effectively. This is what we need. We'd like to see, frankly, an air traffic control academy established. Where you screen the kind of people that are going to do this job, know that the ones you're getting have the aptitude for. You've brought in a new aspect here that I think the lay public doesn't really know or appreciate very much about. Mr. Sayon in the very few seconds that we've got remaining, would you, as briefly as possible, say what you think one thing is most needed to improve our air safety traffic problem? Well, the biggest problem we have in aviation today, and I think one of the responsibilities of the pilot is to keep pointing out the hazard areas, even when their hazard area is coming up in the future, and this we try to do. We tried to point out this problem 10 or 12 years ago, but it took accidents really to get the public around. It takes time, and it takes more time than we've got to finish the question properly today. I suppose that in trying to sum up now, the thing that sticks in my mind most after

hearing these two experts talk is that the situation has some bad aspects in it. There are some very dedicated people in the whole industry, and on the government side too, that are trying to improve, and you've got a factor of psychology here. If you get somebody in it that's interested and get the pilots, the traffic control people, and the government together, you can get somewhere, and they are trying. From the public point of view, it would seem to me that one of the things most important is for the government and for the industry, and as far as that goes for the pilots themselves, to be more frank as to what is going on. Next week, briefing session goes into a problem that ironically has grown out of some of the greatest advances of our time. The average American today could look forward to a long, long life, 70 years in comparison with the 47, but he could

expect at the turn of the century. But tragically, as he grows older, the very medicine that has prolonged his life is often further and further beyond his reach. Our program them is going to be on the issue of medical care for the agent, whose responsibility and how best to achieve it. We hope to see you then. Briefing session was produced by Joel O'Brien, directed by Robert Prio. Our guest today, what Clarence Cyan, president of the airline pilots association, and Francis McDermott, executive director of the air traffic control association. Your host, ABC's Edward B Morgan, analyst John McVey. The funds for the production of this program have been provided equally by the AFL CIO and the National Educational Television and Radio Center. Briefing session is produced by Joel O'Brien Productions. This is NET National Educational Television.