NEW YORK, Feb. 6 (UPI) -- New York air-traffic controllers are risking crashes by chatting, texting and watching movies on duty, a supervisor charges.
Some controllers are working only 3 hours of their 8-hour shifts, leaving a single person to do the work of two or three, states complaints filed with the Federal Aviation Administration and the whistle-blowing Office of Special Counsel by Evan Seeley, a manager at the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center in Ronkonkoma, the New York Post reports.
Seeley made his report Jan. 17, three days before a near collision between an American Airlines jet and two military cargo planes over the Atlantic that was not revealed until Friday, after the Post inquired about it.
Sources close to the investigation blame the "Category A" error, the most serious kind, on careless communication between controllers giving instructions to the American fight.
Seeley says controllers work with little oversight at the Long Island center, which coordinates high-altitude flights through the Northeast, including from Kennedy, La Guardia and Newark airports.
Seeley says he was demoted in January in retaliation for trying to put the house in order.
Three traffic-control staffers told the Post Seeley's allegations were just "the tip of the iceberg."
