A YEAR has passed since the terrible midair crash of a tourist helicopter and a small plane above the Hudson River.
During the stunned weeks that followed, there were calls for change and promises of improvement. One of the most glaring problems was the unstructured airspace in an extremely congested area. Another was lagging technology. And disgruntled and underpaid air traffic controllers provided a third reason to worry.
Fortunately, there have been some good outcomes. Because of subsequent changes, investigators have looked into a quarter as many safety incidents in the state as they did last year, Staff Writer Tom Davis reported. And Teterboro Airport has been free of safety investigations since last August. That is heartening news. For six years, modest Teterboro racked up more than two times the number of investigations as its much bigger New York colleagues, La Guardia and John F. Kennedy International airports.
We are concerned, however, that the number of New Jersey's air traffic controllers has remained steady when it should have increased. And that the pay hasn't changed, either. An air traffic controller in one of the busiest metropolitan areas in the country makes less than controllers in Atlanta and Philadelphia.
"Who the hell wants to come to New Jersey and make less than they do somewhere else?" asked Ray Adams, president of the Newark chapter of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.
A reasonable question. And a tough one to address, since layoffs in the private and public sectors are rampant. But passenger and pilot safety is nothing to toy with, and something needs to be figured out.
Until glitches are fixed in a new satellite system, radar will continue to be used to monitor the area around the crash. But with the metropolitan area's tall buildings and ragged skyline, radar does not always track at lower heights. Which means a year later, the danger is still there.
We understand that advances in technology can be slow, and that problems must be worked out as much as possible before new surveillance is put in place. No one wants a faulty tracking system, rushed into place before it is ready, that will lead to more awful collisions. But there must be a stopgap measure put in place in the meantime.
The National Air Disaster Alliance, which represents pilots and travelers, wants the Federal Aviation Administration and others to create a master plan that describes in detail the problems affecting planes before departure and arrival. That is a good start. But we need to do more, and sooner rather than later.
"There are a lot of systemic problems right now," the president of the National Air Disaster Alliance told The Record. "Hopefully it doesn't take any more people being killed to get them to fix it."
Exactly.
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