David Shepardson:
So I looked at the NTSB data before this, and it’s actually lower — I think it was around 130 or something in the first six or seven weeks of this year — or sorry — last year, the two months versus the first six or seven weeks of this year.
However, that doesn’t mean — and most of those are — nearly all are small planes, single — private planes involved in accidents. It’s worth noting that before that collision outside of Reagan National, we had gone 16 years in the United States without a U.S. pasture airline fatal crash, since 2009.
So the system is very safe. Now, that is not to say we have not had a series of very troubling near miss incidents. And it raises questions about, is the system overstressed? We have air traffic controllers in many places working six-day weeks, mandatory overtime.
We’re about 3,500 controllers short of where the standard — the ideal staffing should be. And, remember, the airlines, there’s more and more flights being added. There’s more demand. So the system is under some level of stress. And I think one question is, how do we ensure that, as we add more demand, that the system can perform safely, despite areas where we clearly don’t have enough staffing?
