…Problems Solved?…

FAA spokesman Greg Martin said the problems at DFW have been addressed. “We take the charges seriously and as soon as we became aware of them we took immediate corrective action,” he told USA Today. Whiteman isn’t so sure. She said the OIG/Special Counsel report heaped too much blame on a retired manager and relatively little on managers still working in the TRACON. “Nobody has been severely reprimanded,” she said. John Carr, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said the FAA’s reporting procedures are to blame. “The agency has created a culture of underreporting of errors,” he said. Indeed, both controllers and managers get bonuses if safety stats improve. Things for Whiteman have not … Despite her vindication, Whiteman is anything but jubilant. “I don’t know if ‘disillusioned’ is a good term. Disappointed. At times, shocked,” she told the Dallas Morning News. The personal toll has been considerable. A colleague slapped her and called her an obscene name while a manager stood idly by. She claims another tried to run her off the road and another was so intent on deriding her that he lost track of the airplane he was controlling and sent it on a collision course with another. Probably the worst blow was losing her job in the TRACON (she’s now the tower manager) with the understanding that she could never safely work there again. “It may be hard for the public to appreciate how difficult it is for whistle-blowers to report wrongdoing in the government,” Special Prosecutor Scott Bloch said in a statement. “Ms. Whiteman should be commended for bringing to light these serious operational errors that threaten our very air safety and security.”