It is amazing that our country daily has thousands of commercial airliners and thousands more private aircraft taking off, flying great distances and landing – with rare mishaps.
A big reason for that good record is that we have sophisticated flight rules and an air traffic control system to keep track of flights and avoid accidents.
It was shocking, therefore, when two passenger airliners approached Washington’s Reagan National Airport early Wednesday morning – and the airliners’ pilots got no response from the control tower!
What happened?
It has been reported that there are 31 airports in the country that operate overnight – between midnight and 5 a.m. – with only a single air traffic controller on duty. Alarmingly, the controller in this case has acknowledged he was asleep. Fortunately, no accident resulted. The planes that approached the airport and got no response avoided the planned landings, circled, then made contact with a regional traffic control center at Warrenton, Va., 50 miles away. By that time, it could be determined that no other aircraft were in the area, and they were able to land.