In the wake of an Office of Special Counsel report that revealed Federal Aviation Administration managers covered up significant errors at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, FAA and the air traffic controllers union disagree about whether a new tracking system accurately conveys the number of serious mistakes controllers make.
The union argues that the new system underreports serious errors, giving a misleading impression that aviation is getting safer even as the workload increases and controllers retire. But the FAA says the changes were intended to make reporting more fair to controllers and to avoid recording minor deviations as major mistakes.