Long Beach, California

The world of air traffic control is very democratic—even controllers get the flight-delay blues. The inside story:

For passengers who have been inconvenienced by flight delays, take heart: Air traffic controllers sometimes suffer with the rest of us.

Such was the case during October 2000 in Southern California, when the National Air Traffic Controllers Association hosted a booth at AOPA Expo in Long Beach. The day before the show opened, a lengthy equipment outage at Los Angeles Center in Palmdale delayed several hundred flights and forced many others bound for LAX to land elsewhere.

One of the planes contained the booth that NATCA intended to display at the pilots’ show. As the ripple effect from the Center outage lasted into the evening, controller Bob Marks worried that he’d have to stand forlornly in an empty 10- by 10-foot space at the show.

Air traffic gradually returned to normal, and Marks—relying on the inside connections of his profession—tracked down the wayward UPS flight. Fortunately, the plane arrived in Los Angeles in the nick of time. When opening-day crowds poured through the doors of the Long Beach Convention Center the next morning, a smiling Marks stood proudly in front of an informative booth display that he’d just finished assembling.

— Japphire

Beaufort, South Carolina

An F-18 was returning from a training mission with “Hung Ordnance.” In this potentially dangerous situation, the aircraft has attempted to drop its bombs but they haven’t released and could during landing. Approach Control relayed this information to the Tower. When the pilot checked in with the Tower, the Local controller (a female) asked, “Verify the lead is hung.” To which the pilot replied: “Like a bear!”

— Jamie Sigmon: Birmingham, Alabama, Tower

Brownsville, Texas

I was working in the contract tower in Brownsville, Texas, one morning and had several Tomahawk trainer aircraft in the VFR touch-and-go pattern to Runway 13. Valley Approach hands off a DC-8 heavy on the ILS straight-in, and I sequence some of the Tomahawks to follow him. I divert my attention to a VFR pop-up (unexpected private aircraft) 3 miles south of the field, and then realize the first Tomahawk I told to “extend downwind” hadn’t done so. Instead, he’d turned right in front of the DC-8!

The student flying the Tomahawk spoke poor English — and it took a couple of calls for me to get my point across for him to get out of the way (including an exasperated traffic call to alert the DC-8 crew). Once the DC-8 was on rollout, the pilot called me to say: “Tower, you didn’t need to move the Tomahawk. We’ve always wanted a new hood ornament!”

— Jason Dunaway: Beaumont, Texas, Tower

Yuma, Arizona

From the “Blooper Log” which recorded funny ancedotes in the Marine Corps Air Station Yuma ATCT: Controller A is working local (“Tower”). Controller B is answering the phone and Controller C is doing nothing in the back of the tower cab. A flight calls to say, “Yuma Tower, Rescue 1 with the ATIS, over the Sand Pits for landing.” At the same time, Controller B hangs up the phone. Controller A keys up to reply to Rescue 1 when Controller C says to Controller B, rather loudly, “Who the f - - - was that?!” Startled by the comment, Controller A unkeys his radio and the pilot responds, “Uh, we are Rescue 1, with the numbers.”

— Jason Dunaway: Beaumont, Texas, Tower

Marine Corps

An urban legend I was told in the Marine Corps: A particular C12 (military KingAir) ran a nightly route and returned at the same time, night after night. The pilot decided to be funny one night when he checked in with the tower by simply saying, “Guess who?” The controller got the last laugh by quickly shutting off the runway lights and replying, “Guess where?”

— Jason Dunaway: Beaumont, Texas, Tower

Holding for New York

After a passenger suffered a medical emergency, the pilot asked ATC for clearance to land at the nearest available airport. A few moments later, he advised that the passenger had died and asked to proceed to the flight’s original destination of La Guardia. The controller advised there was a hold for LGA. Fifteen minutes passed while several other aircraft checked in on the frequency, several of which began holding for LGA. After twenty minutes, the first pilot asked how much longer they’d be holding, adding that “some of the passengers are getting nervous about the dead body on board.” Whereupon another pilot radioed, “How long have you been holding!?”

— Scott Straub: Washington Center

Slip of the tongue

After a particularly exhausting session, a controller who’d put several aircraft on vectors was turning them back on course. His final clearance to a flight should have been “resume normal navigation.” Instead, he told the pilot to “resorm naval numigation.”

— Scott Straub: Washington Center

Inside the Beltway

A supervisor of ours was transferred to headquarters in Washington, D.C., where she was assigned a project. Calling back to the center, she chatted with a controller about being in charge of STARS (Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System). The controller congratulated her on handling such a big responsibility. She paused for a moment and then asked, “What is STARS?” Only in the FAA can someone be in charge of something at the national level and not know what it is ...

— Scott Straub: Washington Center

Say, what?

After an hour of saying “Cleared visual approach runway one-five right” I realized that I could do a pretty good Elmer Fudd imitation when one pilot responded, “Wah-jah.” Of course, after spending 9 years in New York, I sounded like a Yankee fan when I came to Houston. After I cleared one aircraft for an approach at IAH, saying “maintain 170 knots till the marker, cleared ILS runway 27 approach,” the pilot responded, “Roger, 170 knots till the ‘mah-kah’ cleared approach.” I was busy, but I did get enough time to tell him that if he was going to make fun of it, at least get it right — it’s New York, not Boston — that is ‘mok-ka’ vs. ‘mah-kah.’

— Natalie K. Moloney: Houston Intercontinental Airport

Oh, say can you see?

A friend still at NY TRACON once said, after repeatedly passing traffic to a VFR plane on Long Island (which the pilot did not see), “What are you — fucking blind?” To which the pilot replied, “No sir, I have the traffic in sight.” The controller insists to this day that he was not keyed up on the frequency when he said that.

— Natalie K. Moloney: Houston Intercontinental Airport

The right runway

At approximately 2:30 p.m. in Houston, a heavy Boeing 747 was inbound to IAH. As I vectored him for a visual approach, I asked the pilot if he had the MD-80 ahead in sight. I also told him a DC-9 just north of the MD-80 was landing on a parallel runway. He stated that he had both aircraft in sight, and I told him to follow the one to the south: “Cleared visual approach runway 9.” I did not switch the aircraft to the tower because there was a 737 lining up off of the heavy’s left behind the DC-9 for the parallel runway. After transmitting to one or two other aircraft, I went to switch the heavy to the tower and noticed he’d overshot the runway and was on a collision course with the 737.

I told him to “turn right immediately heading 180, approach clearance canceled.” I repeated this twice more with no response (his TCAS was probably screaming at him, too). I told the controller working the other final that the heavy was NORDO (no radio). She broke out the 737 to the north, but not before the pilot asked what the “fuck” the 747 was doing and was he going to land on them? Luckily for all, the heavy came back up on the frequency and said something to the effect that he thought he might have lined up for the wrong runway. I broke him out to the south and each aircraft was re-vectored to final. The 737 received a visual approach while the heavy was put on an ILS approach, although he kept insisting he had the correct runway in sight that time.

An off-duty controller called in to say he saw the two aircraft pulling apart and that he’d never seen two planes so close together that didn’t hit. My guess is that it was just a moment’s inattention by an exhausted flight crew. Nothing like a little averted midair to get your adrenaline pumping!

— Natalie K. Moloney: Houston Intercontinental Airport

TRACON outtakes

Here are a few stories Paul McElroy heard while researching TRACON that didn’t make it into the book.

All Keyed Up

A journeyman controller listens to a garbled radio transmission and leans over in his chair. His “love handle” keys the mike as he says, “That’s the worst fucking radio I’ve heard in my life.” A developmental (trainee) jabs him and points out that the frequency is live. The controller unkeys his mike, then hears a pilot respond, “Yes sir, we’ll get that fixed right away.”

Final Approach

A pilot on final is having difficulty. The controller rolls out the equipment and radios to ask if there’s anything else they can do for him. The plaintive reply: “Call my insurance agent.”

Going in Circles

A controller mistakenly tells a Cessna on the ground rather than one in the air to “execute a three-sixty turn.” When he sees that the target in the air is not following his instructions, he repeats the command. A pilot on the ground quickly taxis in a circle, saying, “I’m doing it as fast as I can.”

Gobble, gobble

Pilots from a particular defunct airline had a reputation for their cowboy tendencies. One Thanksgiving, a controller tells a pilot to switch frequencies. The pilot responds “will do” and wishes the controller a happy Thanksgiving. The controller says, “You have a happy Turkey Day, too.” He then hears one of the pilots impersonating a turkey on the radio. Five seconds later, he hears the other pilot simulating two gunshots—“bang, bang!” Then he hears the first pilot say, “By George, I think you got him.”

Come again

A controller tells a pilot to fly as fast as he can for traffic separation. The pilot responds in a low voice, “We’ll keep her throbbing like a cud thumb.” Unfamiliar with the expression, the controller wonders whether the pilot will keep up his speed.

— Paul McElroy