DC-bound plane loses radio contact, pilot erred

PORTLAND, Ore. — An Alaska Airlines jetliner bound for Seattle made an emergency landing in Portland, Ore., Thursday night after the pilot lost consciousness, an airline spokesman said. The co-pilot landed Flight 473 safely after declaring an emergency to get priority care for the pilot, spokesman Paul McElroy said. All of the airlines’ pilots are trained to fly single-handedly.

US officials announced new shift rules for air traffic controllers as part of a "zero tolerance" policy to stop alarming numbers of staff from falling asleep on the job.Transportation officials monitoring some of the world's busiest air traffic have been red-faced as case after case of workers snoozing in US airport towers came to light in recent weeks, in some incidents leaving pilots of passenger jets to land unassisted in Washington.

Sequester politics just got dirty. Seizing on the public’s frustrations with sudden delays in the nation’s major airports, Senate Republicans on Tuesday charged the Obama administration with “manufacturing” a slowdown of airline flights by furloughing FAA traffic controllers rather than finding other savings under the sequester.

Beginning this week — as part of the government's mandatory budget cuts — nearly 15,000 air traffic controllers, along with 47,000 total FAA

The FBI said it’s investigating an unmanned aircraft spotted by a pilot on an arriving flight yesterday near John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is seeking the public’s help in identifying and locating the craft, which came within 60 meters of an Alitalia SpA flight, said John Giacalone, special agent in charge of counterterrorism for the FBI’s New York office. The craft was described as no more than three feet wide with four propellers, according to the FBI.

With less than 36 hours to go, automatic budget cuts look like they will hit every level of the federal government, and while politicians and labor leaders are predicting everything short of apocalypse, it's probably not going to be as bad as some predict for air traffic controllers.

(Flightaware.com)