This is an excerpt from a report made to the Aviation Safety Reporting System. The narrative is written by the pilot, rather than FAA or NTSB officials. To maintain anonymity, many details, such as aircraft model or airport, are often scrubbed from the reports.
Planned a flight-seeing tour with family today. Checked NOTAMs and conditions 20 hours and then two hours pre-flight. Nothing NOTAMed on the Tower being closed.
Pre-flighted the aircraft and listened to ATIS. ATIS states Tower closure in about 90 minutes without explanation. Spoke with Ground/Tower. Great Controller but clearly working solo on a very busy day.
He was clearly overworked. He missed my clearance request, which I restated. It was clear he was working alone and handling Clearance/Ground /Tower solo.
I’ve been in and out of San Carlos Airport (KSQL) in California for many years. This short staffing problem is a consistent problem.
I raced back to the field in time to land prior to the Tower closing knowing how this worked out last time when the Tower closed early. It was a nightmare, and a real safety issue.
I call this out as 1) it should be NOTAMed hours before closing, 2) this seems to happen often at KSQL, which is a very busy Class Delta airport.
I worry that inbound pilots will not know the short staffing problem and resulting Tower closures and there will be accidents.
It’s clear something needs to be done to improve this contract Tower for the safety of all pilots and passengers.
Primary Problem: Chart Or Publication
ACN: 1953250
The KSQL tower has recently been including in its ATIS broadcasts that “San Carlos traffic pattern is closed today due to staffing.”
We all understand that staffing issues can occur on occasion, but they’re happening frequently at San Carlos, all day.
What the heck is going on with this contract tower and its management? This is an important Class D airport, directly under the Class B airspace of SFO.
These staffing issues at San Carlos have been going on for years. They need to be fixed NOW!
When the tower is closed, not the airport, the airport is still open. Use the airport as non-controlled airport. Use the tower frequency for all communications like a non-towered airport.