| The air traffic controller who was at the controls when an outbound Caribbean Airlines flight and an inbound Delta Airlines with President Bharrat Jagdeo aboard nearly collided in the skies above Guyana asked for immediate relief in the wake of the incident.The controller, listed in the report by Captain Gregory Fox as Controller 2, sweated and became nervous after the near miss. He had just replaced the other controller, identified as Controller 1.The report stated that, at 12:16 GMT, Controller 2 took over the watch but that Controller 1 had cleared the Caribbean Airlines flight to proceed to fly to a location after clearing 12,000 feet, ensuring separation from a Trans Guyana flight and an incoming Caribbean Airlines flight, BW 661.“Apparently, he may have failed to place BW 484 (the outbound Caribbean Airlines) flight progress strip on MINDA” — a geographical position which is a reporting point at the boundary between Guyana and Trinidad.At that time, the Delta flight was at the reporting point and flying at 35,000 feet.Equipment on both aircraft, the Terminal Collision Avoidance System, went into the alarm mode, and the Caribbean Airlines pilot took evasive action by veering sharply to the right.The Delta pilot reported seeing the Caribbean Airlines flight, within two to three miles and 200 feet of its altitude, passing from west to east.In the wake of the loss of separation between the two flights, Capt. Gregory Fox, who conducted the investigation, also reviewed the performance of the air traffic controllers.“A review of all air traffic controller work records for August and September revealed a startling trend: they are all working an average of 30 hours of overtime each month, and have been doing this on a sustained basis for a long period.”“Some controllers work up to forty to fifty hours of overtime, and one worked 66.75 hours and another 69 hours of overtime in September, stunning high levels of overtime work.“If they do not work overtime, there are not enough controllers to allow them to take normal vacation time (or) to man the facilities at minimum levels. The Guyana Civil Aviation Authority is clearly short of air traffic controllers.”Works and Communication Minister Robeson Benn said that there is a continuing drive to improve the situation, but Guyana is also faced with the problem of people leaving for other countries that experience a similar shortage of air traffic controllers.Minister Benn has acknowledged that there is a difficulty in recruiting and training suitably qualified people for jobs as air traffic controllers.Yesterday,Cheap Stitched Jerseys, Minister Benn explained that there is a concerted effort to recruit air traffic controllers. Candidates are required to have passes at CXC or GCE with mathematics and the core science subjects, such as physics and chemistry, being mandatory.He said that recently 20 were selected, and after an interview 10 were selected for a training programme. Of the 10, only one — a woman — was successful at the examination. |
