Two Airliners Land in Washington Without Tower Communication

According to the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board, two planes landed safely early Wednesday morning at Washington's Reagan National Airport after they were unable to reach anyone at the airport's air traffic control tower.

The FAA refused to comment on a media report that the airport controller had fallen asleep. NTSB spokesman Peter Knudson said, "All we know is the controller was unresponsive and we want to know
why."

The situation began at 12:10 a.m. Wednesday when an American Airlines plane attempted to call the tower for clearance to land and got no response. The plane had been in contact with a regional air traffic control facility, and a controller at that facility advised the pilot that he, too had been unable to contact anyone at the tower. "1012," the controller said, referring to the airline's flight number, "called a couple of times on landline and tried to call on the commercial line and there's no answer.

About 15 minutes later, a United flight also failed to reach the tower and landed without incident, he said. After that, the controller in the tower was back in communication. Knudson said one controller was staffing the tower at the time this occurred.