People with Disabilities
Individuals with targeted or “severe” disabilities are the most under-represented segment of the Federal workforce. The People with Disabilities Program (PWD) ensures that people with disabilities have equal Federal employment opportunities. The FAA actively recruits, hires, promotes, retains, develops and advances people with disabilities.
The FAA meets the goals of the PWD Program through a variety of practices:
Targeted Disabilities
Targeted disabilities are those disabilities that the Federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring. They include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism.
This is from the Federal Aviation Administration.
Here’s what I wonder: does the FAA target disabled people with, say, “severe intellectual disability” for positions as air traffic controllers? That makes me nervous.
One of the things that has been done very well in this country, mainly by the airlines but possibly also by the FAA, is to make commercial flying extremely safe. It would be tragic to reverse that on purpose.
READER COMMENTS
gwern
Dec 9 2023 at 1:46pm
It doesn’t say the FAA is going to hire them for controllers. I don’t know what percentage of FAA headcount air traffic controllers, the actual guys in the dark room hunched over their scopes are, but I would guess it’s probably less than 10%. And the controllers have to go through tough job-related exams and practices (so protected from discrimination lawsuits as many of those tests are just simulations of the job itself), which is part of why there is such a shortage of controllers (when I look at the requirements and the cost of living to work at the NY TRACON, I always observe that anyone who could do the job could probably go work for FANG at 5x the salary and 1/5th the stress and crummy working conditions like ‘forbidden to leave the building for any reason, even lunch’) so anyone with an intellectual disability who gets through all that must have a disability which isn’t relevant to the job.
David Henderson
Dec 9 2023 at 3:31pm
You wrote:
I agree that it doesn’t. It doesn’t specify any particular jobs. That’s why I asked rather than making an assertion.
Matthias
Dec 9 2023 at 9:16pm
Presumably the percentage of actual controllers could drop even more with a bit of automation. But they seem to be quite averse to that?
David Seltzer
Dec 9 2023 at 2:49pm
I served at NAS Corpus Christi. Naval ATC’s are trained at A and B schools. Some of the tests of intellectual ability for them are: Numerical reasoning, verbal reasoning, diagrammatic reasoning and situation judgement. David’s nervousness is warranted.
Richard W Fulmer
Dec 9 2023 at 2:51pm
My first reaction is, “it depends.” I assume (hope?) that the FAA doesn’t hire people with epilepsy, severe hearing loss, or severe vision impairment as air traffic controllers. On the other hand, disabilities such as paralysis below the waist or missing legs are probably irrelevant. And people with certain kinds of autism have amazing powers of concentration and might be perfect for the job.
Still, ideology seems to trump reality these days, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they put their beliefs ahead of passenger safety.
David Seltzer
Dec 9 2023 at 4:23pm
“And people with certain kinds of autism have amazing powers of concentration and might be perfect for the job.” Good point Richard. I suspect those individuals would be tested in simulators as pilots are when learning to fly a new airplane.
Grant Gould
Dec 9 2023 at 5:16pm
The ATC training program is so intense it washes out half the applicants more or less immediately. I wouldn’t have any worries that anyone unqualified would get through… on the other hand, having watched a controller at work, I’m also not sure the sort of brain required for that work wouldn’t itself be considered a disability in other circumstances: It requires a functionally inhuman level of very specific working memory, speed, and visualization skills. Normal humans would be unsuited to it.
Fun fact, if there’s a small towered airfield near you, you can probably observe the controller working in exchange for some snacks. The staffing shortage has a lot of small airfield controllers running ten or even thirteen hour shifts, and they can’t leave to get a snack. And their work is a wonder to behold — a true pinnacle of human performance and terrifying grace.
Anonymous
Dec 11 2023 at 4:06pm
Are you not aware of the recent changes to the recruiting process for ATCs? There is a new test they developed because the old test was racist. Now there are way more close calls (mostly airplanes almost hitting each other) than before. Google it.
TT
Dec 10 2023 at 11:45pm
There are thousands of jobs within the FAA that have nothing to do with ATC. Controllers have to maintain a medial clearance similar to pilots. If something like an ADHD diagnosis can disqualify an ATC applicant, a severe disability would obviously disqualify someone as well.
Damon A
Dec 11 2023 at 5:57am
I’m retired from ATC. They’re a lot like the community as a whole. Personality types run the gamut, as do personal beliefs and styles. The one thing that is different from the general public is I never met an ATC who wasn’t good at learning and putting that learning into practice.
I worked at the Indianapolis Enroute Air Traffic Control Center, and I will say one thing. It was a mistake to choose this as a career for me. The sort of intelligence that can be an ATC is capable of so much more. It seemed like a shortcut to money, but in reality it was just a shortcut that traps the young and foolish. The stresses just aren’t worth it. I’ve seen more than one friend die just before or after retirement at 50 years old. And it’s usually a heart attack, but stress kills in so many ways.
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