Performance of air traffic control tasks by protanopic color defectives

Air traffic controllers perform a number of tasks which involve color identification, color discrimination, and color naming. Normal color vision is required for air traffic controllers, although the requirement is currently under review. The most critical task involving color is the distinction of red and black on flight strips; the distinction must be made reliably, quickly, and routinely for flight safety. In this study of four protanopes and three normals, all the protanopes were unable to make this distinction reliably under the lighting levels encountered at air traffic control (ATC) centers, whereas none of the normals had any difficulty. Protanopes also made numerous errors with other ATC tasks involving color. The use of a red filter, often recommended to aid color defectives, actually made performance worse and additionally compounded the usual protanopic loss of brightness for red light. When Snellen visual acuity was tested using the red filters, protanopes needed up to four times larger letters than the color normals. It is concluded that protanopes have inadequate vision for safe performance of some current ATC tasks.