Risky Travel: El Paso airport

Flying in and out of El Paso’s airport could soon be dangerous. That’s what weather observers are telling ABC-7.

Aaron Storms is the senior observer with El Paso International Airport. He said El Paso sees its fair share of inclement weather. “Wet microburst, dry microburst, hail, freezing rain, funnel clouds, toronadoes, sandstorms, dust storms, we get weather phenomena often.” Storms said.

Making sure you get through any of those weather systems when traveling by air is what weather observers working for the Federal Aviation Administration are challenged with every day.

Weather observers communicate crucial weather information to the people in the towers to make sure planes land and take off safely. The FAA is looking to save money; one proposal eliminating those weather observer positions at more than 50 U.S. airports and solely relying on computers for the information. Storms reports up to-the minute weather conditions so that pilots, dispatchers and air traffic controllers know exactly what’s going on outside.

“Air traffic controllers are going to undergo a few weeks of limited aviation weather reporting training and that’s going to supplant people who have been at this for decades,”said Storms.

Storms says tower personnel are already overworked and just like the rest of us, they can make mistakes. And if weather instruments go down, air traffic controllers are not allowed to leave their post … but a weather observer can go outside and report conditions they see with their own eyes.

“Everybody is going to be left on their own. Businesses’ aircraft operators, parcel services, their not going to be alerted to the danger because they have their own safety protocol,” Storms Said.