Controller exposes near midair collision

EXCLUSIVE: Air traffic controllers asleep on the job: at least 5 incidents have been reported in the past month. And when it happened in Miami, two pilots were left to fend for themselves in one of the nation's busiest airspaces until a fellow controller blew the whistle.

Controller Carrie DeLeon immediately reported her sleeping colleague, a move that may have saved lives but cost her co-worker his job.

Here's the full transcript of the segment:

SPITZER: Air traffic controller asleep on the job. At least five incidents have been reported in the past month. And when it happened in Miami, two pilots were left to fend for themselves in one of the busiest air spaces until a fellow controller blew the whistle.

Controller Carrie DeLeon immediately reported her sleeping colleague, a move that may have saved lives but cost her co-worker his job. She currently has a gender discrimination suit pending against the FAA.

Tonight, as part of CNN's in depth look at the air traffic control crisis, an exclusive interview with that whistleblower. Carrie DeLeon is a 20-year veteran of the air traffic control center in Miami. She joins us now along with her attorney Randy Fleischer.

Carrie and Randy, thanks so much for being with us.

I want to go back to that night of April 15th, just a week and a half ago. Tell us, Carrie, what happened in the control tower?

CARRIE DELEON, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: It was a midnight shift. It was my third midnight shift. I'm very tired. Since the incident in D.C., we were all no longer allowed to sleep on our breaks so all of us were very exhausted. And I more so because it was my third midnight shift.

At 10 until 5:00 a.m., I go back to work, another check-in from my break, and I'm brought to the attention that he is fast asleep, he's got a wheelie board blocking his view from anybody look into the area, but you could clearly see his feet were up on the counter and very relaxed like he was asleep.

As I walked out in the control room, I just looked over at the ops manager. After previously having to turn him in for sleeping, I just pointed that, shook my head, and got out of there because I really didn't want to be there when they woke him up. And I heard that they literally had to shake him to wake him up.

SPITZER: Now let me drill down on this just a little bit. When he was asleep, was he at that moment responsible for looking at the screen and giving instructions to planes about where to go, when to land or how to move their location?

DELEON: I went over, and observed his scope. He had two airplanes that were clearly a good 30 miles inside his air space, still at high altitude. Both of them apparently were landing. And my co-worker said they're going to be asking for lower soon. I look over to the ocean and I go, who is that? And he goes, Ken Martin. And I go, you've got to be kidding me.

SPITZER: Do you know what happened? You said there were two planes that were soon going to ask for permission to land or to change altitude. What happened when they radioed in, if you know?

DELEON: I have no clue. Like I said, I was kind of shocked at what was happening, and me being involved in it that when I walked past the front desk and shook my head in disbelief, I left the control room until I came back in to sign out and go home. And I had not been back to work since. So I have no other details.

SPITZER: Carrie, you also mentioned that there were prior incidents with Ken Martin. Tell us about those.

DELEON: He let United 846 and Spirit 374 come together at the same altitude, 36,000 feet, both doing over 450, 425 knots and he did not climb the United 1,000 feet to ensure separation until conflict alert had gone off and they were at or less than 23 miles from being in the same place at the same spot of air.

SPITZER: OK. Just so I understand, you used a lot of –

DELEON: And I reported –

SPITZER: Carrie, let me just stop you so we understand the setting here.

DELEON: Go ahead.

SPITZER: Because you're used to using all these numbers and vectors and all the other jargon real quick. Just so we understand. Were these two planes heading towards each on a collision course or were they going in the same direction but too close to each other?

DELEON: No, sir, they were converging at 36,000 feet.

SPITZER: And what should Ken Martin have done the moment he saw that?

DELEON: Well, prior to the conflict alert going off, I had called him - when I saw the conflict with my equipment and called him and requested the Spirit to be descended to 50340, just requesting that so I wouldn't have to point out to him that maybe he didn't see it.

And then just before conflict alert went off, I called him on the override and I said, you do see those two at 36. And he curtly responded, I will separate my own airplanes, and then he let the conflict alert go off. He climbed the United only 1,000 feet.

And in my opinion, he did not use the proper phraseology where my 7110.65 bible tell us that if conflict alert activates, you shall use the word immediately. And I'm pretty sure he didn't because the United only climbed 100 feet a hit until I think he was at like 36,400. And then I would assume that he got - alert on the traffic and expedited his climb to 50370.

SPITZER: How long did he wait between your first contacting him to say, you know you have these two planes that are converging and the time that he actually instructed them to separate and to move to different altitudes?

DELEON: I would - I remotely recall that I waited until United crossed into our air space out of Cuban air space and called and asked for the Spirit to be descended to 50340. Then I let them run probably another 20 more miles before I called and said, you do see those two at 36. And then it was maybe a minute after I called that the conflict alert went off.

SPITZER: So your clear recollection is he waited at least over a minute between the time you first alerted him to the fact that these two planes were on a dead collision course until he did anything about it?

DELEON: Yes, sir. That's my opinion.

SPITZER: Are these facts detailed and set out in the complaint that you have now pending with the FAA?

RANDY FLEISCHER, ATTORNEY FOR CARRIE DELEON: Eliot, I don't think that that's part of her complaint because that happened after she filed the charges. And one of the problems that we have with the agency is they're really trying to narrow the scope of what her complaint is. And they don't want to investigate everything that happened.

In fact, they're trying to whitewash everything. And the FAA is not concerned about other air controllers stacking up planes and handing them off to Carrie in violation of procedures and safety.

SPITZER: Have you brought this allegation to the FAA's complaint, even if it isn't in the document relating to your specific litigation with them?

DELEON: Yes, sir. On December 12th, I was called into a meeting with my ops manager at the time and the vice president union rep of our facility, and I was told that they could not do anything to Ken Martin because an error had not occurred, and that I had to allow a systems deviation or a deal to happen before they could do anything to him.

So it was like they were wanting me to use the flying public so that they could get him in trouble, and I'm not about that at all.

FLEISCHER: Ken Martin was actually surfing the Internet when he was supposed to be watching planes on his radar scope.

SPITZER: OK.

FLEISCHER: And the FAA did nothing about it.

SPITZER: Randy, this is now November 25, 2010 you're saying that this incident occurred. The question I then had is, are there any electronic records of any sort that would document and prove what you have just said?

If he was surfing the Internet, are there searches, Web searches, online searches that could be documented. Is there an e-mail that you sent, is there a recording of the air traffic space that would let us see the planes on these converging paths at this moment? Anything that would prove beyond any doubt that what you're saying actually took place?

DELEON: Yes, sir, the actual surfing the Internet incident was on December 9th, 2010. And the supervisor on duty, I called him back to the area. So he physically himself saw Ken Martin sitting there surfing the Internet when he should have been 20 feet over at his sector watching his airplanes.

And I've been informed by the AF technicians in the building that they record everything that's kept forever. So all they'd have to do is pull up the history of the computer at that time of the night and see, because it was American 984 that was driving into my air space without a handoff.

That I was just sitting there watch coming into my air space. And I was like, this is crazy. So I called the sup at the front desk and I said, would you please come down here. So I showed him the American driving into my air space, Ken Martin sitting at the sup's desk surfing the Internet.

SPITZER: Did you include these facts in the complaint that you filed with the FAA?

DELEON: From the very first day that I went to human resources and file my complaint, that was in the package. It's also in the formal package I filed when I filed my EEO complaint in June of 2009.

SPITZER: Carrie, I want to ask also this important question. Are - was this part of a pattern that you saw? Was Ken Martin the only one who was playing games of this sort? Or did you see other air traffic controllers who were your colleagues doing the same sorts of thing? Either sleeping, not handling the handoffs properly, not responding when planes were converging? Was it Ken Martin only or were there others?

DELEON: No, sir. It's been years of this practice of harassment.

FLEISCHER: Part of the larger problem here, Eliot, is that you're dealing with an all-boys kind of network. And you know the boys don't like a good solid strong woman in the middle of their work environment. And you see the same problem with firefighters, with women coming in, as you do with air traffic controllers.

And the boys ganged up on Carrie and they put the planes together on her and they're doing this without any thought to the safety of the people up in these airplanes. And they're doing it just to get her. They've been doing it for a long time and the FAA turns a blind eye to it.

And - so again, just like every other federal agency, they don't want to hear about discrimination in their workplace and they do whatever they can to whitewash it.

SPITZER: Look, I obviously appreciate all the detail you've given us. We're going to use that to go back to the FAA and see what their responses to this. And also then ask for the documents if they exist that might corroborate this.

All right. Carrie and Randy, thanks so much for joining us tonight.

FLEISCHER: Thank you, Eliot.

DELEON: Thank you, Eliot.

SPITZER: We want to reiterate, Carrie DeLeon has an administrative claim pending against the FAA, alleging gender discrimination in her work as an air trafficker controller in Miami. She alleges that male controllers manipulated planes in an effort to harass her. She is currently on leave from her job.

We contacted the FAA for response to Miss DeLeon's charges. A spokesman said the matter is still being investigated. In regard to specific safety allegations made by Miss DeLeon, the agency says it takes all allegations regarding safety very seriously.

We've also attempted to locate the fired controller, Ken Martin, to get comment from him regarding Miss DeLeon's other charges but we have been unable to contact him. We would welcome his appearance on our program to answer the charges.