Controllers: FAA's Flight Plan Problem a Safety Issue

Five air traffic controllers at Detroit’s Metropolitan Wayne County airport (DTW), all covered under the official whistleblowers law, are reported to have uncovered a flight-planning problem they claim puts aircraft at risk of collision and wake turbulence-related accidents. The controllers told the Office of Special Council that inputting multiple flight plans to the FAA National Airspace System computers to revise existing plans can provide conflicting information to both controllers and pilots. The existence of multiple flight plans opens the possibility a controller could clear an aircraft via an expired or incorrect route and altitude. The controllers added that the existence of multiple flight plans is occurring more and more often across the U.S.

The FAA said a working group it created in 2012 had little effect on the problem. An updated version of that same working group, according to a July 2015 internal FAA audit, has still failed to solve the problem.