Akhir 19, 1432 H/March 24, 2011, SPA -- Federal authorities were investigating Thursday why an airport control tower fell eerily silent for about 30 minutes, forcing two jumbo jet pilots with a total of 165 passengers to take matters into their own hands to land their planes, dpa reported. The planes landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport, near the heart of the US capital Washington, one arriving from Miami and one from Chicago, received no response as they tried to contact the tower's lone on-duty controller on approach after midnight Wednesday. That prompted one pilot already beginning his descent to abort the landing and pull up, according to a German Press Agency dpa correspondent who was on the American Airlines flight from Miami, returning from covering Sunday's election in Haiti. She said that the pilot calmly told passengers that the control tower had not responded. "The tower is apparently unmanned," a controller from a nearby tower told the pilots, according to a recording released and broadcast on CNN. "We called on the phone, and nobody is answering." The American Airlines jet circled the airport for nearly 30 minutes before attempting another landing, broadcasting its approach and guided partly by their own airlines and controllers from nearby. The United Airlines plane from Chicago also landed without the control tower's help. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it was launching an investigation. It remained unclear why the control tower was not responding. US media reported the air traffic controller had fallen asleep, while others suggested the controller may have been locked out of the tower. The incident prompted an immediate reaction from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who ordered Reagan airport to place two air traffic controllers on its midnight shift and directed the FAA to review staffing at other US airports. "It is not acceptable to have just one controller in the tower managing air traffic in this critical airspace," LaHood said in a statement.
