'That's BS': Air traffic controller under scrutiny after dismissing pilots' emergency call as a hoax,,An air traffic controller is under scrutiny after he confused a pilot trying to make an emergency landing for a prank.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -hoax.html

Weird. Wouldn't this guy have been a handoff from approach? There should have been a tile on the board for the flight. It's hard to figure what happened there. Glad everyone is OK.

Emory Bored wrote:Weird. Wouldn't this guy have been a handoff from approach? There should have been a tile on the board for the flight. It's hard to figure what happened there. Glad everyone is OK.

Glad everyone is OK, too. But yeah, kind of confusing chain of events. Just from what I heard and in my own opinion, the pilot didn't seem to be all that calm and cool like Capt. Sully.

I never heard the full call sign from the pilot.. Just "5412", instead of "United 5412". In fact, I never heard a "May Day, May Day" and a "Declared Emergency" from the pilot. Would be interesting to hear the full unedited audio clip.

full audio is on avweb.

Old friend of mine's son-in-law used to fly the Lear for Bob Seger back in the day. Said there was plenty of smoke in that cockpit

^^^^^^^

How about squawking 7700

gbflyer wrote:Old friend of mine's son-in-law used to fly the Lear for Bob Seger back in the day. Said there was plenty of smoke in that cockpit

Ya think they used the approach plates for rolling papers 7700 what's a 7700

FAR/AIM
6-2-2. Transponder Emergency Operation a. When a distress or urgency condition is encountered, the pilot of an aircraft with a coded radar beacon transponder, who desires to alert a ground radar facility, should squawk Mode 3/A, Code•7700/Emergency and Mode C altitude reporting and then immediately establish communications with the ATC facility.

c170pete wrote:full audio is on avweb.

Do you have a link to share? Thanks.

Here's the Avweb link: http://www.avweb.com/other/RollTheTrucks.mp3 But it's edited, so we don't hear the whole thing.

I was wondering if "5912" had just taken off when the emergency occurred, which would explain the pilot's just using "5912" and no apparent hand-off. In any event, until a pilot has an emergency, it's not really fair to second guess how someone else responds to one. There's no requirement to use magic words like "declaring an emergency" or "Mayday" to convey that there is an emergency situation, although sometimes it's pretty helpful to do so. There's also no requirement to switch the transponder to 7700, and in fact that may be counter-productive under the circumstances. Granted that the pilot's voice didn't have the "cool" that you'd hope for, but we're not all Capt. Sulleys.

The first job of any pilot faced with an emergency is to keep the airplane under control and deal with the emergency, which in this case, the pilot most certainly did--he got it on the ground safely, in spite of a controller who clearly was not doing his job professionally.

Apparently there was a fire within the airplane's panel, which was extinguished by ground support after all of the passengers had been evacuated.

Cary

Can you "Squawk" anything at all (?) after you have shut off all the electrical you don't need to get-er-down safe?

I don't know anything about airliners except where 'steerage class' is.....
lc

As a controller I probably would have reacted about the same. That pilot was unintelligible on the radio. If he would not have been screaming into the mic perhaps the controllers reaction would have been different.

Disagree--he said 5912 the first time he called when he said he had an emergency (using that word) and smoke in the cockpit and he called for the trucks, and when the distracted controller asked him to repeat, he very clearly said 5912 again. By then the controller had already wrongly concluded that it was a fake call, didn't hear the 59 part of 5912, and pretty much disregarded everything from then on, in his "righteous indignation" at what he believed was a fake call.

Imagine the situation the pilot was faced with, and ask yourself if you could calmly state everything: There's smoke rolling out from under the panel, you have seconds to get the airplane on the ground, and you have a controller who frankly isn't paying much attention. Your panic level increases, a normal human response. Not only are you at risk, but you've got an airplane full of passengers who are counting on you. But you can't even get the controller to acknowledge that you're in trouble. You don't know if there are other airplanes that will be in the way as you turn back to land, because the person who is supposed to hold all traffic for an emergency is not even responding to you. But you land successfully, and you do your job and evacuate the passengers--but you still try to get the controller's attention because you know you might have passengers with injuries and your airplane is on the runway--and the only mike is in the cockpit where all the smoke is coming from. Maybe you'd be screaming, too.

Sorry, I can't stand up for the controller at all in this case. At the end of the day, he gets to go home to tell his wife that some of the pilots weren't very professional--they even shouted into the mic so that he couldn't understand them. Never mind that he was so asleep at the switch that he couldn't tell a real emergency from his imaginary bogus one.

I can't be sure because it's been almost 2 years, but the voice of the controller sounds suspiciously like a Denver Approach controller who used non-standard language with me so that I couldn't be sure if I had been cleared into the Class B or not. When I asked for clarification, I was screamed at by the controller, and there was no more call for that than what happened here.

99% of controllers are good people, doing their job. But like all professions, there are those who are substandard and who really ought to find another line of work--one with no hassles, no pressure, no contacts with people. I think this may be one of them. At the very least, he needs some heavy duty remedial training.

Cary

With the proliferation of hand held radios, it's very common now to have some clown get ahold of one and see what"fun" they can have. Normally if you say smoke to a controller, it elicates a huge response. My guess is that a history of handheld clowns will play into this. I've always respected the controllers, the job they do is usually first rate, professional, and they work under some of the worst supervisors known in any industry. I've never been one to call for immediate firings like we see every day in the news every time someone steps in something deep in job performance. They won't make the same mistake again.

Doesn't sound to me like he's "screaming into the mic" but trying to communicate with a controller who didn't hear or wasn't listening at the moment while wearing an oxygen mask. Those things are tight against the face, push on the lower jaw, and sound muffled and garbled when talking fast... like when dealing with an impending inflight fire. The pilot speaking is likely the non-flying pilot, trying to communicate, run multiple checklists, have the F/A prep the cabin, assist the flying pilot and anything else needed at the moment. A very busy person.

That was BS.
In a high chatter environment it is everyone's (controllers included) job to be very acute to radio calls and specificity within them. This controller evidently had his head up his ass so far he couldn't hear.
"Fifty nine" sounds nothing like "United".
I personally don't hold ANY water with the handheld defense. It is his job to respond properly to emergencies and if that requires quadruple checking on his part to get the wax out of his ears then so be it. That can be done in a period of six seconds.
Allowing that much time to lapse while he digested it and discussed it with another controller is unconscionable.
No matter how many false 911 calls are made every day the cops are still required to respond to EVERY one.
If that thing would've burnt to the ground on the runway with all inside because the trucks weren't waitin when they could have been right behind them on the rollout the shit would really be hitting the fan on this dude.
I do agree with the "not going to make the same mistake" theory, for some.

If the pilot makes a mistake the pilot and passengers die, if the controller makes a mistake the pilot and passengers die. So if a pilot sounds like he is under stress, well he is. Everything the pilot said I heard clearly.
G,Day

I have to agree with the majority of what Cary said. I also want to agree with the poster that said he has great respect for most all the controllers. I do as well. Just like pilots, there is only a very small minority that has no biz flying or controlling. IMHO the percentage of outstanding controllers is higher than the percentage of outstanding pilots.

I just want to point this out as well; most compliments of the Hudson incident go out to Ol’ Sulley on a job very well done. Rightfully so! Great example of the pinnacle of what pilots should become. Many people forget that controller however. IMHO that controller was also very high caliber individual. They both made each other look good. Let’s play “what if” for just a sec, what if Sully had received the controller from Denver. Would we have seen a different side of Sulley. Maybe one a little more frustrated having to deal with a controller that thinks he knows what’s real or not insides the cockpit.

I hope if the day ever comes that I have an IFE, I get a controller that realizes he's safe and sound in a controlled environment, and the best thing he can do for me is treat my emergency as real, remember where he’s at, so he stays nice and calm…then remember where I’m at and most importantly help in any way he can to ensure I remain calm.

Sorry, I have to strongly disagree that this controller did anything wrong! He was trying to do his job and solve a puzzle without having all of the pieces. So what that he made the wrong initial determination and thought there was a spoofer on freq. Spoofers are not uncommon in places like DEN or LAX. He didn't have enough pieces of the puzzle initially, to be able to solve it. Later when more information was available, the picture got alot clearer, he solved the puzzle, and emergency services were on the way. What's the big deal? What pilot hasn't totally botched both making and hearing a radio call??