Air traffic controller caught sleeping
WASHINGTON — Aviation and safety experts are on alert after an air traffic control tower supervisor reportedly fell asleep at the switch early Wednesday at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., leaving two commercial jets to land without gaining clearance.
The controller, along with other Federal Aviation Administration officials at Reagan National, was interviewed by the National Transportation Safety Board, NBC News has learned. The controller — a 20-year-veteran, 17 of those years at Reagan — had been working his fourth consecutive overnight shift (10 p.m. to 6 a.m.)
“What’s really shocking about this is that they had only one person in that tower," aviation lawyer and safety expert Mike Pangia told NBC News. “It’s a human thing to be indisposed for one reason or another."
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