What it's like to be an air traffic controller

-- Ron Connolly sometimes had to function on four hours of sleep or less when he worked as an air traffic controller. He remembers going to work exhausted and not getting enough rest between shifts, which sometimes ended and began on the same day.

"I used to feel that I was so tired that I actually felt sore," said Connolly, who retired two years ago after working for more than a decade at Charleston International Airport in South Carolina.

"It was very difficult to stay awake, extremely difficult," he said recalling his time on the overnight shift when he was usually the only one on duty.

So Connolly said he was not surprised by the recent revelations that several air traffic controllers have fallen asleep on the job this year -- a trend that U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood called "absolutely unacceptable."

The Federal Aviation Administration said it will assign an extra air traffic controller on the midnight shift at 27 control towers that have been staffed with only one person during those hours to help combat the problem.

Meanwhile, Hank Krakowski, the FAA official in charge of operating the air traffic control system,