Two air traffic controllers get into fistfight in tower

The incident occurred at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

Mar 31, 2025 - 18:45

Two air traffic controllers get into fistfight in tower

While the shortage of air traffic controllers is something that aviation has been grappling with for decades, the issue has recently come under an especially strong spotlight with the new administration.

Trump-appointed Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has repeatedly spoken about wanting to launch an ATC hiring "supercharge" but faced strong criticism over doing little other than shifting blame to the previous administration (the profession is a notoriously difficult one to staff due to the high training standards, mandatory retirement age and stressful nature of the job).

Don't miss the move: SIGN UP for TheStreet's FREE daily newsletter

'The fatigue and midnight shifts slowly kill your body'

The profession has also been under heavy scrutiny after a Jan. 30 crash killed all 67 aboard an American Airlines (AAL) passenger plane and a military Black Hawk helicopter; the two crashed into each other upon the former's descent to the Ronald Reagan National Airport (DCA).

"You wonder why 56 is the maximum age?" one anonymous ATC wrote in a letter addressed to Duffy in a forum for the profession on the social media platform Reddit. "The fatigue and midnight shifts slowly kill your body while bureaucracy kills your soul. It's wildly unhealthy and too much to handle in your fifties."

Later recordings revealed that it was the crew onboard the Black Hawk that did not hear critical ATC instructions minutes before the crash.

But an incident in which ATCs were very likely in the wrong occurred on March 27 when, as first reported by the Daily Mail, two got into a fistfight at the same DCA Airport.

Due to proximity to downtown D.C., Reagan Washington National Airport sees some of the most tightly-controlled airspace in the country.
Shutterstock

Splattered blood and a fistfight in the control tower: Here is what we know went down

"By the time the brawling colleagues were separated, there was blood spattered over a control console," the source reportedly described to the Daily Mail.

Local news outlet WJLA reported that one of the controllers has already been put on administrative leave. The FAA confirmed that the incident occurred but did not provide details on what may have caused the fight or how it was broken up.

More Travel:

"I've heard of controllers going at it in the parking lot but this was on a whole new level," the source told the Daily Mail further. "That facility is out of control. People are cracking because of what happened in January."

The FAA also said that it is in the process of investigating the incident. The problem with ATC staffing is multi-pronged — while the FAA has repeatedly cited the slowdown in hiring during the covid-19 pandemic, many of those who work in the profession have named the long hours and stress relative to pay as the main reason they would not recommend it to a younger friend or family member.

"We currently have 10,800 certified professional controllers where we need [to have] 14,633," Nick Daniels, who heads the National Air Traffic Controllers Association union, said to CNBC on March 29. "Any hiccup, a government shutdown or anything that disrupts the pipeline of the air traffic controllers coming in, will absolutely hurt the capacity of the flying public, and how many planes we can put in the air at any given time safely."