1. Thanks sftypee for posting the link to a summary of the incident.
2. Admit I started watching the "second" video which has been referred to by many posters; also admit it became too tedious to continue watching to end. But regardless, its content (as has been noted) isn't necessarily official.
3. Tomorrow, Thursday Nov. 30, the Aviation Subcommittee of the House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will hold a hearing in Rayburn on Capitol Hill. It will be yet another effort to break the legislative logjam - hearing subject matter title: Importance of Passing A Comprehensive Long-Term FAA Reauthorization Bill.
4. One of the four scheduled witnesses to testify in the hearing is the president of NATCA, National Air Traffic Controllers Association.
Could there be some questions for this witness, and perhaps the others as well, derived from this incident? Yes, I think there are.
Q: What was the main or primary cause for the controller not providing accurate estimates of delay time? (Rather obviously, with endemic or even systemic problems in controller staffing, it appears important to try to know, was the breakdown of communications about delay *only* less than ideal performance by that controller, likely stemming from workload? Or was it, conceivably, temperament flaring? Is there another explanation possible? ... I mean beyond pejorative ones.
Q: What has FAA done so far, if anything, to examine the incident? Doesn't DLH deserve some recourse for a diversion that in reality - or so it seems to just an SLF/atty guest here - did not need to occur, such recourse in the form of assurance it doesn't happen again? (Obviously it had become necessary in fact)
Q: Relatedly, what about providing for better advance notice of operating limitations, that is, both by FAA and by a carrier about its SOPs that impose such limits?
I'm resisting the perhaps sarcastic temptation to ask in any detail, when SWIM is talked about ....System-Wide Information Management - problems like those leading to this incident occuring will be digitized out of existence,.....right?