Factor
Woodstock, VA
Male, 65
My life in ATC began with 4 years Air Force then another 30 years with the Federal Aviation Admin. working tower & radar at some big international airports. I fought in the 1981 war with PATCO, survived the strike and kept a job that was just too exhilarating to walk away from. While there was nothing better than working airplanes, I did move on through several air traffic supervisory and management positions. It was a long, crazy career but I wouldn't trade a moment of it for love or lucre!
Complete communications failures are extremely rare. What we see more often is known as a “stuck mike.” That’s when one aircraft on a control frequency transmits (usually by pushing a button) and that button sticks. This leaves the aircraft’s radio in a continuous transmit mode; meaning no one else on that control frequency is able to transmit – including the controller! (And they wonder why we drink.) It’s like using a walkie-talkie to communicate with with twelve other people. If you make a call and your transmit button sticks – everyone will hear you but will not be able to respond. In such situations, the pilot won’t become aware of what has happened until he or she realizes things have become unusually quiet! Hopefully, the other pilots on that frequency will quickly recognize the stuck mike situation and call the air traffic facility on another frequency. Eventually, the pilot with the problem will realize what happened and check his or her mike button. Then life is good again!
If an aircraft experiences a complete radio equipment failure, the pilot can select a special code that is sent from a different kind of non-voice transmitter. That code lets ATC know the aircraft has lost its radios. This information is forwarded to all other ATC facilities along the aircraft’s route. Controllers will keep other known traffic out of the way till the flight lands at its destination. Fortunately, today’s technology and the aircrafts equipment redundancy make such situations highly unlikely.
Good question - thanks for writing!
Factor
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That’s a tough one. There were several of each over the years. I remember seeing a large airliner make a hard landing during a severe thunderstorm. It went off the runway and broke in half in the grass. It was raining heavily when I saw the passengers come scurrying out of the wreckage. Fortunately, there was no fire and not a single fatality! I also recall watching a small, twin engine commuter aircraft take off. A couple hundred feet off the ground, the nose pitched up, the plane tilted sideways and fell. It made a large, smoking hole in the grass and no one survived. "I'll have these moments to remember."
Every November I recall a particular accident involving a small, privately owned, airplane. The pilot had flown into an airport we had control jurisdiction over. Another fellow and I were working the radar sector when he later took off with his young son. It was the Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving and they were headed home for the holiday. All was normal as the plane climbed to four thousand feet. It was then that we lost radio and radar contact with the flight. Local authorities quickly found the main wreckage site. One wing was missing and later located a mile or so away. No survivors. That one really bothered me.
The near misses I’ve seen weren’t as memorable – except for one. I was supervising the radar operation when one of my controllers issued a turn to one of the airliners he was working. To make a long story short, the pilot turned the wrong way. The turn took him directly into the path of another airliner flying at the same altitude. Both flights were operating in the clouds and couldn’t see each other. The two radar targets merged into one and my heart nearly stopped. In my head, I could see the two aircraft colliding, the fireball, the falling wreckage and the next day’s headlines. It was the most horrifying moment of my life. Just seconds later, when the radar antenna scanned that area again, I saw the two targets moving away from each other. I nearly fell over.
And they wonder why controllers drink.
Thanks for the question!
Factor
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Thanks for your questions. They’re good ones and they bring back a few memories!
In my world, which was a terminal facility where controllers were required to work in both the tower and radar room (a configuration that the FAA is moving away from), there was one Supervisor in the tower cab. Down in the radar room there was at least one Supervisor walking the floor and sometimes two if the demand required it. The day and evening shifts also had a second line Supervisor known as an Area Manager who manned the desk and was responsible for the entire operation. Although job titles have changed, you’ll still find a first line supervisor in most towers, plus a number of them in the radar room. That number will vary depending on how many control positions there are in the room.
Controllers didn’t disagree with each other very often but when they did; the exchange could become pretty intense! Sometimes these differences would be worked out later on in the break room or somewhere else after the shift ended.
In the thick of battle, Supervisors would often ‘ask’ controllers to do certain things they felt would facilitate the movement of traffic. Being able to circulate among all the control positions, a good Supervisor was able to maintain an overall picture of what was going on and act on that knowledge. Individual controllers needed to focus on their own area of responsibility and didn’t have the broad perspective Supervisors had. We were free to disagree with a Supervisor’s direction but compliance was mandatory; unless we were willing to face a charge of insubordination. That didn’t happen very often.
At one time in the late 1970s, there was an Article in the Professional Air Traffic Controller Organization (PATCO) Contract with FAA that attempted to address professional disagreements between controllers and Supervisors. The Article absolved the controller of responsibility for any negative outcomes that might occur from following the Supervisor’s order. It worked like this. If a Supervisor ordered you to do something either you or the union believed was unsafe; you would inform him or her that you were invoking that Article. Then you’d comply with the order. I never actually saw anything go wrong in these situations. In those days of constant friction between PATCO and FAA, I think that Article was simply a way for controllers to poke Management in the eye. It made some some people feel better but had no tangible effect on things.
Thanks again,
Factor
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How much we got paid depended on who you asked. It’s probably the same story today. Some will say “Not nearly enough” and others will say “Too much!” I was always happy with my salary but never complained when I got a raise! Controller pay rates have changed through the years but their earning potential is still among the highest for Civil Service workers.
Salaries vary depending on where a controller works. Those who work at low traffic density airports don’t make nearly as much as those who work in very busy facilities like Atlanta, Dallas or Washington. Starting out at the GS-7 grade, the annual base pay is about $33,979.00. Controllers who end up in one the busiest facilities can work their way up to the GS-14 level; making as much as $110,104.00 in base pay. The highest supervisor grade (GS-15) can make $129.517.00. To those base salaries, add on extra money controllers make for working nights, Sundays, holidays and other premium pay situations that bump those annual totals higher. Keep in mind, I am referring to Federal ATC positions. There are a number of private ATC companies supplying controllers to facilities that don’t meet the criteria for FAA controllers.
To your second question – Yes, everyone in the control room is or once was a controller. First line management(supervisors) work directly with controllers and are required to stay proficient on the control positions. Falling into the “was” category would be the second line management folks who are responsible for the entire shift but are no longer required to control traffic. A desk job.
Thanks for asking!
Factor
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Thanks for your question and I really appreciate the compliment!
Although I cannot tell you what the gender ratio is these days; I can tell you there were no women in the Air Force towers I worked at during the Vietnam era. There were two female controllers and about 80 male controllers at the first FAA facility I worked in. The number of women gradually increased but not dramatically. By the time I transferred out (about nine years later), there were six to eight women onboard. One was fired during the 1981 strike. Damned shame too. She was an awesome controller.
The strike actually brought a significant influx of women into our workforce. When I arrived at my next facility in 1983, about 10% of controllers were women. That number grew significantly through the years and when I left there in the mid-nineties, both the Facility Manager and Assistant Manager were women.
I’m sure that, even today, the majority of controllers are male. I can only guess that’s because more women are not applying for the job. It is a tough, intimidating, male dominated and testosterone fueled profession but I can say the female controllers I worked with were among the best.
On my blog (the link is on my profile above)You can read about two of the women I worked with. Look for an entry I made on 01/12/12 titled "On Politics, Passing Acquaintances And Change." Skip down about eight paragraphs if you like and look for the part where I talk about Bonnie and Clare.
Thanks again!
Factor
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You’ve asked an easy question B.T. but the answer makes me very uneasy! When people work within a system for years, decades and careers, they accept the technology in use and rarely consider its vulnerabilities. That’s good in a way because understanding just how fragile something is could be distracting or, at worst, make you brood over it. If you do a lot of flying; I hope my answer doesn’t have those effects on you.
The FAA does not encrypt voice communications between pilots and controllers. They both use “standard radio frequencies” in the very high frequency (VHF) range for most ATC functions. The frequencies used are widely published and available to anyone; as is the radio equipment required to transmit and receive on them. This lead to an unexpected situation in 1981, after the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) went on strike against the FAA. Things didn’t go well for the union and, as the strike dragged on, they grew increasingly determined to convince the public that non-striking controllers were dangerously incompetent. Plans were made and here’s what happened next.
Reports started coming in of ‘phantom controller’ radio transmissions to pilots during critical phases of flight. For example; an airliner about to land might be suddenly waved off or a plane might be cleared for takeoff just as another was about to land. Anything to create confusion. These incidents were perpetrated by striking controllers, using their own radios tuned to our control frequencies. They’d sit, somewhere near the airport where they could watch and listen. Then, at the right moment, they’d transmit bogus instructions. As former controllers, they knew exactly what to say and when to say it. Of course the pilots initially thought it was us! Fortunately, this didn’t go on for long after the FBI got involved.
Thanks for writing!
Factor
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Hello Austin! Your question brings us to an important but relatively rare aspect of air traffic control. Here’s the short answer. There is generally no difference between the way passengers and cargo flights are handled. If two B-747s are headed from Dallas to Dulles; it won’t matter that one was full of people and the other full of boxes. Guided by egalitarian principles, controllers apply the same priority to both. It’s referred to in the business as “first come, first served.” Just like the ticket line at a movie theater; nobody cuts in. There are, however, exceptions.
One important exception would be an aircraft using the word “Lifeguard” in their radio callsign. Whenever an air carrier or air taxi flight uses the “Lifeguard” term in their callsign, it tells ATC they are transporting important and highly perishable cargo such as vital organs, blood, urgently needed medical material or patients. For obvious reasons, these guys get priority handling. That means ATC will get them airborne as quickly as possible, try to give them “shortcuts” to their destination and steer them around rough weather along the way. We’ll even phone ahead if needed to make sure they get expeditious ground handling when they land. This is how the surgeon quickly gets a much needed kidney from Illinois to a transplant patient in New York. It’s a thing of beauty.
I hope this answers your question!
Cheers,
Factor
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