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The U.S. air traffic control system is chronically understaffed. The Federal Aviation Administration has tried for years to build up the ranks, but it's still thousands of controllers short of its hiring goals. NPR's Joel Rose reports on why it's so hard to train enough air traffic controllers.
JOEL ROSE, BYLINE: The movie "Pushing Tin" is mostly forgotten, except as the answer to a trivia question about Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton, who met on the set. But air traffic controllers tend to remember it because it's a workplace drama about the people who managed the airspace around New York City in the '90s.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "PUSHING TIN")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) American 7736, contact Newark Tower 118.3. Take care. Thanks.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) You do good work. American 7736.
JOHN CUSACK: (As Nick Falzone) Is that crisp vectoring or what? I got them lined up like Rockettes.
MICHAEL MCCORMICK: I was actually there when they made the movie.
ROSE: Michael McCormick worked in air traffic control for over 30 years, including a stint at the New York Radar Approach Control in the '90s. Now he's the head of the air traffic management program at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, where he's training the next generation of controllers on how to do the job.
MCCORMICK: In your head, you create a mental model of what is actually transpiring on your displays. And with that mental model, you can then look to the future and predict where the aircraft are going to be based upon the current conditions. You will be able to then project - this aircraft I need to turn, this aircraft I need to climb, this aircraft I need to descend.
ROSE: It's not a job for everyone. You have to have the innate ability, as well as the determination, to push through years of training, to learn the nuances of each aircraft, each airport and each control facility. The first big hurdle is an aptitude test, known as the Air Traffic Skills Assessment, or ATSA.
JACK KARINS: I'm not an anxious person, typically, but that test scared me.
ROSE: Jack Karins is studying air traffic management at Embry-Riddle. The test focuses on spatial reasoning, short-term memory and math, and it is intense, partly because of the material itself and partly, Karins says, because the stakes are so high.
KARINS: That's why it stresses you out so much, because it could end your career before it started.
ROSE: There are only three scores you can get on the ATSA - not referred, qualified and well qualified. The FAA does not say much about how the test works, but in practice, you need a score of well qualified in order to get hired. Some applicants get that on their first try, like Alejandro Jaramillo, who recently graduated from Embry-Riddle.
ALEJANDRO JARAMILLO: I know people who have taken it five or six times before they got a good enough score, and I know some people who are like me, who we were able to get it on the first go.
ROSE: Jaramillo grew up driving go-karts and race cars, so maybe that experience helped him on the test. Once you pass the ATSA, that's just the beginning. Applicants have to attend the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City or a handful of accredited colleges, including Embry-Riddle, where they learn the same skills, using air traffic control simulators that are nearly identical to the ones the FAA uses, according to former controller Michael McCormick.
MCCORMICK: Delta 802, Academy departure. Radar contact. Climb, maintain 12,000.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Climb, maintain 12,000, Delta 802.
ROSE: That training includes nuances about aircraft and airports and even the right tone of voice.
MCCORMICK: Control of voice is something that you learn that demonstrates that you're calm, that you're in control, and it exudes confidence. If you have any level of uncertainty in your voice as you issue your instructions, the pilots will immediately pick up on that and they may start questioning what your instructions actually are.
ROSE: For air traffic controllers, training doesn't end when they get hired by the FAA. It continues in control towers and radar facilities. Controllers can put in as much as five years of on-the-job training, but McCormick says it's all worth it when they are finally certified.
Joel Rose, NPR News, Daytona Beach, Florida. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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