Story ID: 211242014safety
Congress To Pursue Safe Towers Act
By: AIN Staff
Caption: Representatives upset at what they believe were arbitrary changes to FAA hiring practices
Word Count: 159
The FAA’s decision this year to drop its traditional hiring preference for students of approved ATC training schools has drawn criticism from some members of Congress, who claim the new process–intended to promote diversity–actually eliminates hundreds of qualified candidates.

The new Safe Towers Act, H.R. 5675, introduced by Reps. Randy Hultgren (R-Ill.) and Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) and recently referred to committee for further action, would restore the original hiring preference for pre-trained candidates. “I believe the new procedures jeopardize airline safety and risk putting lesser qualified candidates into our towers,” said Hultgren in a press release. “Many qualified applicants have been rejected from the process by an illogical personality test that asked such irrelevant questions as whether you played a high school sport. Just because someone was a star athlete in high school doesn’t mean they have the skills or training for us to trust them in our towers.”