Concerns grew after two planes had to land without help in Washington because of a sleeping controller The US aviation agency says it will change air traffic controllers' work scheduling, after several incidents in which controllers fell asleep on duty.
The Federal Aviation Administration said it would do "everything we can to put an end to this".
In Miami, another controller fell asleep on duty at a radar facility that handles high altitude air traffic.
In the past month, a number of planes have landed safely at US airports without controller guidance.
The head of the US air traffic control agency, Hank Krakowski, who oversaw the day-to-day operations of 15,000 controllers at 400 airports, resigned on Thursday.
The FAA says that it would ban scheduling practices most likely to result in tired controllers, by early next week.
Randy Babbitt FAA“We are taking important steps today... But we know we'll need to do more”
"We are taking important steps today that will make a real difference in fighting air traffic controller fatigue. But we know we'll need to do more," FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt said in a statement.
The agency also said that a controller had been suspended at a busy regional facility that handles high-altitude air traffic in Miami for napping while on duty on Saturday morning.
On Wednesday, Mr Babbitt announced that the FAA would place an additional air traffic controller on the midnight shift at 27 control towers across the country. Previously, they had been staffed with only one controller during that shift.
The issue rose to prominence last month when two jets were forced to land at about midnight at Reagan National Airport, near Washington DC, without help from the local control tower.
The pilots, who carried 165 people aboard the two planes, were unable to raise the tower controller on the radio, and a subsequent investigation revealed he had inadvertently fallen asleep during the shift.
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Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/world-us-canada-13106469
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