Monday Accident and Lesson Learned: Aviation Safety Callback

As a Tower Controller, your role is vital to ensure the pilots have the information and guidance they need when descending and landing their aircrafts. One Tower Controller was working alone on midday shift when an aircraft was coming in for landing while experiencing minor turbulence. The Tower Controller cleared him for landing and gave instruction, but also had to leave his station to record a PIREP for moderate turbulence on the AISR website. When he returned, the pilot had descended past the assigned altitude, which could have been avoided if the Tower Controller could do two things at once, submit the PIREP to the AISR website and the FSS at the same time.

The suggested corrective action is to allow the Tower Controllers to enter the PIREP to just the FSS allowing them to focus on the current operation.

What do you think?

(Resource: ASRS Callbacks)