He showed the Free Press reams of FAA reports he’d obtained about the uneven performance of one runway's guidance system. Now, although retired, he wants one more victory. Another put a stop to pilots who'd been filing revised flight plans but failed to cancel their original plans, causing potentially hazardous confusion about aircraft routes - a beef whose correction “went national,” Sugent said, with a touch of pride. One led to a multimillion-dollar fix at Metro’s control tower to eliminate black mold. In 2010, Sugent was named Special Counsel Whistleblower of the Year, after succeeding in multi-year demands for several health and safety complaints. Navy, stationed in Alaska and California.Īlthough these days he's happily distracted by visiting grandchildren, he still keeps file cabinets jammed with documents about his years of voicing complaints on behalf of coworkers, his union and airport safety, he said. He learned of the runway issue in 2015, was relieved that year when managers shut down the worrisome guidance system, and then lodged an official complaint soon after it was turned on again in August 2018, he said.Īt age 56, Sugent retired in September after working at Metro for 24 years and for a previous 12 years at other airports, including five years directing military aircraft while in the U.S. At long last, his concerns were making waves. Sugent, the former president of the union’s local at Metro Airport, representing about three dozen employees there, said he was relieved. Independently, Peters’ staff had already contacted the controllers union, a spokesman in Peters' office said. In that meeting, Peters’ staff urged FAA representatives to revisit the issue, and in particular to go over it with “outside stakeholders” including members of the air traffic controllers’ union - the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, or NATCA. Representatives of Sen. Debbie Stabenow and U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib also attended the FAA meeting with Peters’ staff. Peters is a member of the Senate Subcommittee on Aviation and Space, giving him unique standing among Michigan’s lawmakers in Washington to request feedback and seek changes from the FAA. In light of the Special Counsel’s conclusions, I instructed my office to follow up with the FAA and the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, as well as third-party stakeholders, to ensure safety procedures at DTW are strong and being followed accordingly.”ĭTW is the official airport code for Detroit Metro Airport. “Whistleblowers play an important role in oversight (and) we must ensure their claims are thoroughly investigated and procedures are followed to ensure their protection. The issue is worrisome enough, and Sugent even in retirement has been so relentless as a whistleblower, that U.S. Sen. Gary Peters asked FAA officials to discuss it earlier this month with Peters’ staff.Īfterward, Peters told the Free Press in a statement: The August 5 report from the Office of Special Counsel, signed by Trump appointee Henry Kerner, who heads the office of high-level investigators, concludes that “safety issues are unresolved” and that the FAA’s claims of having put safeguards in place “do not appear reasonable.” The report urges the FAA to “take the steps necessary” to resolve the safety concerns raised by Sugent, 56, of Ypsilanti Township. The report said that although the FAA tried to discredit air traffic controller Vincent Sugent, his concerns were fully supported by a detailed review of the FAA's own studies, as well as by the problems some pilots have encountered while landing with the runway’s troubled guidance system. In an official statement, the Federal Aviation Administration told the Free Press last week that it would keep using the system because the agency had put safeguards in place.īut those safeguards were deemed inadequate in a high-level report, which was recently sent to President Donald Trump by the U.S. A recently retired air traffic controller is complaining about an erratic guidance system for planes landing on one of Metro Airport’s runways, raising serious questions about its safety especially during bad weather.įederal aviation officials stopped using the system in 2015, after less than a year of operation.
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