SAN DIEGO – The Federal Aviation Administration’s air traffic manager for the Southern California Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facility issued a memo on Wednesday to all air traffic personnel immediately stopping all on-the-job training for one week in response to what she described as a “recent spike in Operational Errors/Operational Deviations,” which are incidents where controller mistakes result in aircraft coming closer to each other than FAA safety rules allow. 

The FAA memo, sent from Southern California TRACON Air Traffic Manager Linda K. O’Brien, does not provide details on the number and severity of recent operational errors. But NATCA has been tracking the errors. Controllers report that in Fiscal Year 2007, there were 22 total errors, including 16 that were classified as the most serious, called “Category A” or “Category B.” Additionally, there were four operational deviations, which are violations of airspace where an aircraft enters another controller’s airspace without authorization or coordination. But just four months into Fiscal Year 2008, there have already been 18 operational errors – including 11 of the most serious “Category A or B” kind – and two operational deviations.