Diane Vaughan - Dead Reckoning: Air Traffic Control, System Effects, and Risk

Diane Vaughan

The University of Chicago Press

CHICAGO & LONDON

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637

The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London

2021 by The University of Chicago

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637.

Published 2021

Printed in the United States of America

30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 1 2 3 4 5

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-79640-6 (cloth)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-79654-3 (e-book)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226796543.001.0001

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Vaughan, Diane, author.

Title: Dead reckoning : air traffic control, system effects, and risk / Diane Vaughan.

Description: Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020056565 | ISBN 9780226796406 (cloth) | ISBN 9780226796543 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Air traffic control. | Air traffic controllers.

Classification: LCC TL725.3.T7 V384 2021 | DDC 387.7/404260973dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020056565

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

For my support team that has endured

through all the books,

all the events, over the years,

my dearest loves,

my very best work,

my children

The Wright brothers first flight on December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina

Archie League, first air traffic controller, with signal flags and wheelbarrow, Lambert Municipal Field, St. Louis, Missouri, 1929

Beacon, steel tower, shed, and concrete directional arrow, beginning Transcontinental Air Mail Route, 1925

Archie League with signaling light, Lambert Municipal Field, St. Louis, Missouri, 1933

Air traffic controller in radio-equipped tower connecting to airline dispatchers, Newark, New Jersey, 1936

Controllers using blackboards, maps, and phones to airline dispatchers to sequence en route traffic between airports, Newark Airway Traffic Control Station, 1936

Sequencing en route traffic with compasses and moving shrimp boats on table maps, Newark Airway Traffic Control Station, 1936

Women controllers, who replaced men during the war, sequencing en route traffic with flight progress strips, replacing blackboards, early 1940s

Radar arriving and controller following blips on upright screen, Washington Air Route Traffic Control Center, 1948

Controllers using flight progress strips to sequence en route traffic and move shrimp boats on flat radar, Washington Air Route Traffic Control Center, 1955

Flight progress strip

Facility architectural layouts, 2000

Boston Center architectural layout, control room, 1990

Boston Center architectural layout, control room, 2000

Flight progress strip with controller markings

Bedford Tower architectural layout with positions, 2000

Bedford Tower pad management system

Bedford Tower airport diagram

Boston Tower airport diagram

DallasFort Worth airport diagram

Boston TRACON architectural layout with positions, 2000

Boston Tower architectural layout with positions, 2000

Arrival-departure window/Converging Runway Display Aid

Boston TRACON control room, Merrimack, New Hampshire, 2004

Boston TRACON control room architectural layout, Merrimack, New Hampshire, 2004

Boston TRACON control room inner circle redesign, Merrimack, New Hampshire, 2017

Responses of air traffic controllers to whether the job has fundamentally changed them as a person

Extent of the fundamental change experienced by air traffic controllers

Reckoning, according to the dictionary, is a cognitive activity: an act or instance of taking into account, calculating, estimating. Dead reckoning is a navigational term that has these cognitive processes at its core. It refers to a procedure that attempts to locate something in space or time by deductionthat is, unaided by direct observation or direct evidenceand thus the original term, ded reckoning. The historical origin of dead reckoning is in early marine navigation. Unable to identify their location by direct observation or in relation to familiar landmarks, early mariners developed methods of observing and recording their position, distances and directions traveled, and currents of wind and water. The purpose was to calculate where their vessel was, to compare progress with a predetermined route, and to correct for any deviations. For many centuries, navigators relied on the positions and motions of sun and stars and direction of winds for their direction finding. The calculative, intuitive, and cognitive aspects of dead reckoning dominated navigational practice; material technologies were absent.

But gradually, the cognitive and the technological began to merge in navigation. Marine charts, maps, the compass, and devices for measuring speed and distance were among the earliest material technologies for sea navigation. They enabled navigators not only to plot where a craft was but also to predict where it would be at given time. But technological advance notwithstanding, mistake was endemic, due to calculation errors based on using these early devices. With the invention of the airplane in the early twentieth century, human cognition and material technologies have merged in both air and sea navigation, the changes driven by the continuing assumption that increasing the sophistication of the technology will improve the accuracy of measurement and prediction, reduce mistakes, and therefore increase safety.

Now, in the twenty-first century, dead reckoning has even broader meaning. The amount of traffic, the amount and complexity of the technology, and the institutional and organizational contexts of navigation have changed dramatically. So have the goals: dead reckoning includes not only selection of the course, staying on it, and avoiding collision but also mandates to achieve cost efficiency by minimizing fuel consumption and adhering to a predetermined schedule. Moreover, dead reckoning occurs at the organizational and system levels, as administrators estimate and calculate in order to track, predict, and be responsive to changing demands and resources. Counting and measurement dominate, as science and technology are deployed in the interest of accuracy, safety, and efficiency, as well as the survival of the organizational system itself.

This book explores dead reckoning in air traffic control in the early twenty-first century. The central puzzle is, what makes air traffic control so safe? Although the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the agency responsible for regulating air traffic in the United States, has been repeatedly castigated by Congress and the press for inefficiencies, costly technologies, congestion, and delays, the FAAs air traffic control system, responsible for the management of airplane movement on the ground and in the sky, nonetheless has a surprisingly positive safety record. Failures, in the form of accidents and collisions for commercial airlines, are a rarity. When these occur, most often they are due to pilot error or technical failure. In contrast to commercial airlines, accidents are frequent in general aviation, where pilots are not typically trained to be professional pilots, are less experienced, and fly in uncontrolled airspace. However, the safety record of air traffic control for commercial aviation is impressive.