Staffing again ... on the other side of the ocean !

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A shortage of experienced air traffic controllers has resulted in a "staffing emergency" that is jeopardizing safety in the sky and on runways in Atlanta, Chicago, New York and Southern California, according to NATCA the union representing the nation's 14,800 controllers.

"The whole system is going to hell in a handbag, and it doesn't seem that anybody cares," Patrick Forrey, president of the NATCA, said in a conference call to reporters Thursday.

"These people [controllers] are being overworked ... and people are going to make mistakes," he said. "The time is ripe for a very serious catastrophic event on one of these runways."

NATCA stepped up its protracted dispute with the FAA over staffing levels Thursday, for the first time declaring a "staffing emergency," language that has no real impact but is intended to draw public attention.

But an FAA spokeswoman disputed NATCA's claims." The FAA anticipated a recent wave of retirements and hired 1,815 new air traffic controllers last year, exceeding its projections ", she said.

Forrey said the FAA has begun putting new trainees in large metropolitan airports instead of grooming them in smaller airports, as was done in the past. Some of the 14 trainees at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport have no previous control tower experience outside the classroom, he said.

"We've never taken people off the street or out of college and put them into those kind of facilities," he said. "It's just unprecedented."

In the Southern California region, the shortage has bumped overtime expenditures from $261,000 in 2004 to $2.8 million last year, Forrey said, adding, "If that is not any indication that people are being overworked ... I don't know what else is."