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Action News Jax Investigates: Jacksonville International Airport tower not meeting FAA standards

An Action News Jax investigation reveals the tower at Jacksonville International Airport doesn't have enough fully trained air traffic controllers to meet a target minimum set by the Federal Aviation Administration.

These are the men and women charged with the safety of commercial flights in our area. We learned how far below the minimum the JIA tower is and why a real solution could be years away.

In 1991 at Los Angeles International, a distracted controller and lack of help in the tower allowed a Skywest flight to taxi onto the runway as a US Airways flight was landing. Thirty-five people died.

It's a stressful job -- a constant flow of planes, with hundreds, thousands of lives and schedules to protect. A federal audit released earlier this year shows the FAA can't replace retiring air traffic controllers fast enough, creating a shortage in fully trained controllers.

Our investigation reveals the tower at JIA is eight fully trained controllers short of the FAA’s target minimum.

The FAA fills that gap with controllers in training and the gap is smaller than it was a year ago when JIA’s tower was 13 fully trained controllers short of the minimum. So, the FAA is getting closer to its target minimum of 47 fully trained air traffic controllers at the JIA tower.

Right now, the FAA says there are 39. There are 11 partially trained controllers who can help fill the gap but they are not trained to do everything.

It's a system-wide issue. Nationally, the FAA employs nearly 14,000 air traffic controllers. Over the next 5 years, it plans to hire 6,000 more to replace retiring controllers. But training them can take up to three years and the national Air Traffic Controllers Association said the situation has reached crisis level.

"We're going to keep the system safe -- but sometimes we'll slow down the system to keep it safe," said Mike Ryan of the ATCA.

That means potential flight delays.

"They're vital. Vital to safety," said Wayne Ziskal, who teaches at Jacksonville University. He flew for American Airlines for 35 years.

"It's always about safety," Ziskal said.

Ziskal said while a shortage of fully trained air traffic controllers could lead to flight delays, safety should always be the focus.

"You have understaffing and you have people working longer. You have fatigue and stress and human element to make mistakes and in this business we cannot afford to let that happen," Ziskal said.

Late Friday afternoon, the union rep for controllers at the Jacksonville tower disputed the FAA’s numbers.

She said by next month, there will only be 30 certified controllers, not 39.

That would mean the tower would be 17 fully trained controllers short of the f-a-a target minimum. And on top of that, seven more controllers are eligible to retire.

We got this statement from the FAA:

“The FAA always is focused on fully staffing facilities and training its controller workforce to maintain our excellent safety record. The agency is now centrally managing staffing at the national level to maximize the overall benefits for all facilities. As part of that process, the FAA is expediting employee transfers from well-staffed facilities to those needing additional personnel. The FAA also recently concluded research on how controllers do their jobs that will help improve overall staffing standards.”