FAA chief suspends dozing air traffic controller 

Authorities have suspended a control tower supervisor working alone overnight who couldn?t be roused to guide two airliners landing at Washington?s Reagan airport, the nation?s top aviation official said Thursday.

?As a former airline pilot, I am personally outraged that this controller did not meet his responsibility to help land these two airplanes,? Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Randy Babbitt said.

An aviation official who spoke on condition of anonymity because an investigation is underway said the supervisor ? the lone air traffic controller on duty at the airport around midnight Tuesday ? fell asleep.

?I am determined to get to the bottom of this situation for the safety of the traveling public,? Babbitt said.

The supervisor, who wasn?t named, has been suspended from operational duties pending an investigation, Babbitt said.

On Wednesday, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood LaHood directed FAA to launch a nationwide study of airport tower staffing. He also directed that at least two controllers be on duty at night at Reagan, which is located just across the Potomac River from Washington in Northern Virginia.

?It is not acceptable to have just one controller in the tower managing air traffic in this critical air space,? LaHood said.

The head of the union that represents air traffic controllers praised LaHood?s actions, saying changes in staffing are needed.

?One-person shifts are unsafe. Period,? Paul Rinaldi, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said in a statement Thursday. He said the union has long been concerned about single controller shifts, citing a 2006 air crash in Lexington, Ky., in which a Comair regional airliner attempted a takeoff at night from the wrong runway. A single air traffic controller was on duty in the airport tower at the time.

?The administration inherited an unsafe policy of staffing to budget instead of putting safety first,? Rinaldi said. ?We fully support the administration?s aggressive actions to change this policy.?