TAMPA, Fla. — After it’s time for take off, most folks have a smooth flight experience.
But between a tire blowing out on a Tampa American Airlines flight during takeoff Wednesday, and two planes coming within less than 800 feet of each other in Syracuse Monday morning, 10 Tampa Bay went to an aviation expert to find out what’s going on.
“Right now, everything is stretched to the limit in aviation,” said Mark Weinkrantz, who worked for decades as a pilot in the US Air Force and later for airlines. “Do we need more supervisors, do we need more trained mechanics? We need them all. We need more pilots, we need more air traffic controllers.”
Weinkrantz says the industry is facing shortages, adding that other factors also come into play when we see these types of incidents more frequently.
“Just the mere fact that there are more flights in the air at all times than there ever has been before,” he said.
And while Weinkrantz knows these moments can be scary for passengers, he says, “pilots are trained to handle all of this, and it’s almost muscle memory.”
He also says planes are built with backup systems in preparation for issues like the ones we’ve seen lately.