Hero of the Hudson doesn’t like tampering with air traffic control.
WHEN IT COMES to the national proposal to switch out government employees in the air traffic control towers and replace them with private-sector run operations, here’s what we know: Nothing.
Well, maybe not quite nothing.
By following the news we know there is bipartisan pushback in Congress against President Trump’s plan. The proposal has been stalled because both Republicans and Democrats are skeptical.
That’s understandable. Politicians, as a breed, are rather timid souls. This is certain: They do not want to be blamed if air traffic control gets privatized and a crash somewhere quickly follows.
HERE’S THE ONLY other thing we know and it’s powerful: Retired Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger doesn’t like the idea at all.
Sully is the guy who was at the controls for the Miracle on the Hudson, the pilot who brought his plane in for a water landing on the surface of New York City’s Hudson River when a bird strike resulted in losing both engines. Because of his decades of flight experience he was credited with doing what no one thought possible, bringing the plane down in one piece with not a single lost life.
Sully is blunt on the privatization plan. He says it’s a thinly-veiled proposal intended mostly to increase the bottom lines of the airlines. That will come, he says, at the expense of public safety.
As we freely admit, we know nothing. Sully knows. And we believe him.
http://www.beloitdailynews.com/article/20170809/ARTICLE/170809793/1142