AARON PATRICK: As a pilot, my heart goes out to air-traffic controller in La Guardia Airport collision
AARON PATRICK: Managing one of the busiest patches of air in world, New York-area air-traffic controllers are intense, formal and direct. When they make mistakes, people die.
I have never been inside an air-traffic control tower. But I spoke to many air-traffic controllers when I learned to fly light aircraft in the US and Australia.
Listening to the radio communications before and during Monday’s collision between an Air Canada Express passenger jet and a fire truck at La Guardia Airport in New York, my first thought was: the air-traffic controller was responsible. My second was: the poor, poor man.
The incident began with a minor emergency. Another plane had reported an unusual odour, so potent it made flight attendants feel ill. Firefighters were going to help. One contacted the tower for permission to cross a runway.
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At any airport, runways are sacred ground. They cannot be entered, either by aircraft or ground vehicles, without the explicit permission of the control tower. If there are no traffic controllers working, any vehicle or pilot is required to issue a warning over a common radio frequency.
In this case, on a wet Sunday evening, a fire truck with two men on board requested permission to cross Runway Four on a taxiway known as Delta.
The controller gave permission by saying: “Truck one and company, cross four at Delta”.
The fire truck’s driver repeated the order to confirm he understood: “Truck one and company crossing four at Delta”.
At that point, the controller realised there was a problem. A Canadian Mitsubishi CRJ-900 from Montreal was barrelling down the runway.
He desperately tried to warn the fire truck of the danger: “Stop. Stop. Stop. Truck one stop. Stop. Stop. Stop truck one. Stop! Stop truck one. Stop!”
How deadly La Guardia collision happened
Why the firefighters didn’t stop is unclear. Having received permission to cross the runway and driving to an urgent request, they may have not been paying attention to the radio.
Near collisions are rare at well-run airports and once you get permission to enter a runway or a taxiway, you normally enter with confidence the area is safe.
At this moment, two objects were heading to a deadly collision. The plane hit the truck, and sent it rolling several times alongside the tarmac. The plane’s cockpit was destroyed. A flight attendant was thrown out of the fuselage to the ground, still strapped to her chair. The firefighters were injured.
An alarm went off in the control tower. The controller didn’t hesitate. Another jet, from Delta Airlines, was approaching the same runway to land. He ordered him to “go around”, a term meaning the landing has to be aborted.
Then the controller tried to reach the two Air Canada Express pilots, unaware they were dead or dying, to tell them not to move the aircraft.
“Jazz 646; Jazz 646,” he said. “I see you collided with vehicle. Hold position.”
A minor emergency had turned into a once-in-a-decade air tragedy.
“Man, that wasn’t good to watch,” a second controller said.
The main controller replied: “Yeah, I know. I was here. I tried to reach out to my staff. And we were dealing with an emergency earlier. I messed up.”
Crowded air space
An investigation began almost immediately. The controller was likely subjected to a drug and alcohol test and suspended.
I learnt to fly at a civil airport a few minutes flight time from La Guardia. Sometimes the airspace became so crowded the controllers would force you to fly in circles off the Atlantic coast until a gap could open for you to land.
Managing one of the busiest patches of air in world, the New York-area controllers were intense, formal and direct. You were expected to respond to their orders without hesitation. You did, because they held your safety in their hands.
Once, as I climbed north over Long Island in a slow Cessna, a controller warned me that I was in the path of a small private jet. I wasn’t in what is called controlled airspace, which meant I wasn’t his direct responsibility. But I was thankful for his potentially life-saving protection.
When most of us make a mistake at work, no one dies. In this case, two people did. Their deaths may haunt that controller forever, which is a high price for anyone.
