Being Worked Literally to Death

Stacy Nowak died, and she will be terribly missed.   Did you finish reading that link?  I certainly hope so, because you’re about to read a major rant and you’ll be lost if you don’t know the background.

First, let me begin by telling you that controllers are scared to death of FAA Regional Flight Surgeons.  Their careers are on the line every time a Regional Flight Surgeon gets involved on anything even remotely medical . . . and even things that are not.  Or things that have no bearing on one’s ability to do the incredibly stressful job of air traffic controller, and to do it well.  Just take a look at what the Flight Surgeon for the FAA’s Eastern Region put poor Stacy through, then ask yourself if this in any way enhanced flight safety, or if instead it placed pressures on her unnecessarily making her job tougher when she did finally return to work.  Pretty pathetic, really, when you think about it.  Especially what came from a supposedly “enlightened” doctor of medicine, although those coworkers who harassed her and the FAA management team that allowed this harassment also bear some responsibility as well.

And I have a lot of other flight surgeon horror stories I could recount.  You ought to see what happens to a controller who is diagnosed with sleep apnea, for instance.  What’s really ironic about the concern over sleep apnea is that the symptoms are the same symptoms caused by the FAA’s mandated, sleep-depriving shifts and the ignorant order from the Secretary of Transportation that forbids napping even while on a scheduled break.  As you can see, ignorance runs rampant throughout that entire organization’s management team—from the very bottom to the absolute top.

But what killed Stacy, in the end, is not a surprise to me.  It appears she died either of a stroke or an aneurysm.  High blood pressure can cause both, and sleep deprivation causes high blood pressure.  So do the pressures associated with air traffic control, but sleep deprivation only multiplies the dangers.

Lost in all the uproar concerning air traffic controllers fatigued to the point of nodding off while working is this:  The scheduled they are required to work (no, it’s not a schedule controllers came up with despite the deliberately misleading statements from former FAA Administrator Langhorne Bond, Congressman John Mica, and discredited privatization advocate Robert Poole, Jr.—the ultimate non-expert on all things aviation related) is in fact killing them.

Working a sleep-depriving schedule causes high blood pressure leading to potential strokes and heart disease.   It can also cause elevated cholesterol levels, hormonal changes leading to weight gain, obesity, and diabetes.  Just take a look at this research from the Warwick Medical School.  If that’s not enough, do additional internet searches on sleep deprivation, heart attacks, and stroke.  Just a sample of a very long list of what you’ll get:

• WebMD
• The Guardian, U.K.
• The Daily Mail, U.K.
• Emax Health

The previously-cited individuals like to blame the victims for the schedules controllers are forced to work.  They make utterly, completely, and demonstrably false claims that controllers set these schedules despite the fact that the FAA retains complete control of scheduling (and always has), and in fact still forced these schedules on controllers even when there was no controller union (1981-1987) and during the Marion Blakey years when no controller union input was allowed on anything.  How dare these individuals blame the victims for the infliction of a schedule the agency must have in place just to run the National Airspace System, because the agency needs controllers to work a compressed schedule to make them available for overtime during what these three laughingly call controllers’ “extended three-day weekends.”  That is just pathetic.

What’s worse, each and every one of these three has some sort of direct and tangible interest in using this crisis either because they’re in the pay of potential contractors, work for a pro-privatization “think tank,” or accept large election contributions from contractors looking to cash in on this nation’s National Airspace System to the detriment of safety and national security.

So, what precipitated this latest rant? Again, Stacy Gary Nowak’s untimely death did , and she is just one more in a long list of air traffic controllers who are no longer with us either because of health problems, depression, falling asleep behind the wheel on their way home, and even suicide.  As if air traffic control weren’t stressful enough, as you can see there are always those who go above and beyond in their efforts to give controllers even more stress because it either benefits or amuses them to do so.  We don’t know for certain yet, but it appears that Stacy may very well be just one more victim of Marion Blakey, John Mica, Langhorne Bond, and many, many others who are either directly or indirectly responsible for the total and failed mismanagement of the air traffic control system for decades.

Stacy is dead now.  Her chosen career and public service may have been her death sentence.  And like death and taxes, there’s one more thing in life that’s certain:  Langhorne Bond, John Mica, Robert Poole, and Marion Blakey won’t lose any sleep over it because they’re too busy profiting off such tragedies.

Today, Monday, May 16th, I leave on a nine-day journey.  Ursula and I are flying to the east coast to spend some time with our oldest daughter, her husband, and four of our grandchildren.  After that I go to Washington, D.C., at the request of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) to assist this nation’s fatigued, overworked, and under attack air traffic controllers in bringing their problems to light up on Capitol Hill.  I’ll be visiting with various Congressmen and Senators to help spread the word.  Pray that we are successful in protecting you, the flier, from those who profit from endangering lives, property, and national security.  We’ll do our best for you.
Meanwhile, thank you Jim and Randy for watching the house and taking care of the kitties—Ian, Max, and Pooh.  We really appreciate it.