Text 6.

During busy times, controllers must work rapidly and efficiently. Total concentration is required to keep track of several planes at the same time and to make certain that all pilots receive correct instructions. The mental stress of being responsible for the safety of several aircraft and their passengers can be exhausting. Controllers work a basic 40-hour week; however, they may work additional hours, for which they receive overtime, or premium pay, or equal time off. Because most control towers and centers operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, controllers rotate night and weekend shifts. All these facts lead to fatigue and loss of attentiveness. There have been some incidents when on-duty air traffic controllers were found asleep. The controllers use different ways to keep awake.

An unnamed air-traffic controller (Oberlin, Ohio, 35 miles southwest of Cleveland) who was watching a movie on a portable DVD player while overseeing traffic has become the latest embarrassment in a wave of red-faced incidents in the nation’s aviation system. According to the Federal Aviation Administration  (FAA), the controller brought his own personal DVD player to work with him. The controller -- who violated agency policy by bringing a DVD player to his radar position -- inadvertently activated his microphone, and ended up transmitting the audio from the Samuel L. Jackson thriller Cleaner to all the planes in his airspace. The controller, in charge of handling high-altitude traffic at Cleveland Air Route Traffic Control Center, left his microphone on for three minutes, allowing pilots of nearby planes to hear the movie.

Because his microphone was stuck in the transmit position, the controller was unable to give instructions to planes or hear incoming radio calls. A military pilot alerted officials to the problem.

The agency suspended the controller and an unidentified "front-line manager" from center operational duties pending an investigation.