CAPTION.
CREDIT

The number of air-traffic controllers who sleep on their employer’s dime and endanger the lives of the flying public is a disgrace (“5th Air-Tower Napper Nailed,” April 17).

Washington’s typical way of resolving the situation is to hire a second controller, at $163,000 per year, to make sure the first controller does not go to sleep.

Fire the bums.

Patricia O’Hanlon

The Bronx

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Allow me to offer a modest solution.

Step one: Install a very loud alarm in every control tower.

Step two: In every aircraft which may require guidance from controllers, install a button that could trigger the alarm in the control tower when the controllers fail to respond to radio requests.

James B. Sullivan

Roseland, NJ

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The air-traffic controllers who slept during working hours should never be given a second chance.

If you are too tired to work, go home and stay home. And forget about collecting your salary.

Jose Couselo

Rancho Mirage, Calif.

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These key federal employees have pressure-filled jobs with enormous responsibility, for which they are extremely well-compensated.

If they are being assigned work schedules that are unrealistic and untenable, explaining their dozing off in the tower, then this must stop.

If the dereliction of duty is their fault, then it must be recognized that the individual is not suited to this unique and critical work, and he or she must be discharged.

Whatever the root of the problem, it must be determined quickly.

Oren Spiegler

Upper Saint Clair, Pa.