Germany Tightens Air Traffic Safety

In the wake of a near miss at busy Frankfurt airport, German authorities are imposing strict new rules for air traffic controllers

The body responsible for monitoring air traffic in Germany is demanding new powers after a near miss at Frankfurt Airport revealed lax practices at air traffic control, including the fact that staff are often asleep when they should be at their desks.

Deutsche Flugsicherung (DFS), the state-owned company responsible for air traffic control in Germany, wants to implement tougher checks on air traffic controllers in towers to make sure they are doing their jobs properly. As part of those checks, DFS is demanding unlimited access to air traffic control towers, something it has not had in the past.

In calling for the new controls, the DFS management is reacting to an incident which took place at Frankfurt Airport in the early hours of July 18. According to a DFS press release, a Cessna 425 twin-engine turboprop aircraft almost collided with a Boeing 737 at the airport, Europe's third busiest, at roughly 2 a.m. local time.

The Cessna had mistakenly gotten onto a taxiway running parallel to the two runways, rather than onto the runway it had been assigned. When it took off, it barely cleared the Boeing 737, which was on the ground and having its engines tested by mechanics on board. "The tower staff did not notice the occurrence," the press release reads, "and was informed about it by the pilot of the Cessna."

DFS's management immediately launched an investigation into the incident—and is not happy about what it discovered. The investigation found that there were four people in the tower at the time—three air traffic controllers and one flight data specialist. Regulations mandate that two flight controllers must be monitoring flights at all times—even in the middle of the night, when traffic is very thin. But the investigation found that there was only one controller at his desk at the time of the incident.

"DFS regards the conduct of the four staff as a blatant breach of regulations," the company statement continues, "and suspended them from their work in the tower with immediate effect."

DFS is now demanding instant access to control towers. According to procedures currently in force, company agents checking on activities in control towers must first ring a bell before being admitted to the towers, as up until now they have not have access rights. As one air traffic controller told SPIEGEL, it "was easy to just wake up your colleague sleeping in the break room and get them to come up" before the inspectors arrived. Now the company wants inspectors to have instant and unimpeded access rights to the control towers.

What's more, the company's management is thinking about recording conversations between staff in the tower so as to be able to check whether the controllers are taking breaks that violate company regulations. "But this option is controversial on account of data privacy protections," DFS spokesman Axel Raab admitted to the German news agency DPA on Saturday.

jtw/spiegel—with wire reports

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