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Jet circles Zamboanga airport waiting for missing air traffic controllers
Unlike our very own Kent Wien, I never trained to be a pilot, but even without those years of training, I can't imagine it is very comforting to get close to your destination airport and find an unstaffed air traffic control tower.This is exactly what happened when a jet carrying 156 passengers arrived in the airspace of Zamboanga airport in the Philippines, after a flight from the nation's capital.
Instead of hearing the familiar commands from the tower telling them they were cleared to land, the Philippine Airlines flight crew heard nothing. It took 30 minutes of circling around the airport for someone to finally make their way to the tower and permit the jet to land.
Of the 5 controllers who were supposed to be on duty that morning, 2 were missing, 2 were late and one was on an approved day off, but their approval note did not make it to the airport administrator. Talk about a total breakdown of communications.
The excuse the remaining 4 controllers presented was that public transport was hard to find the day after Christmas, but officials say the controllers may still have been a little too much in "party mode". I'm sure that is comforting to hear if you were in the air around Zamboanga that morning.
The newspaper article claims the controllers were fired, but Philippine officials merely say the 5 are currently suspended pending an investigation.
(Via: Sydney Morning Herald)
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Filed under: Philippines, Airlines, Airports
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
xev136 Dec 31st 2008 9:19AM
its simple stop all incomeing flights to airports that dont understand that lives are at stake !!!!!!!
Tom Dec 31st 2008 9:40AM
What is newsworthy is that this pilot didn't have the common sense to land. Airlines takeoff and land from unmanned towers on a daily basis, in the USA, and especially outside of it. At many airports in the USA, airliners takeoff before anyone shows up for work at the tower, and land after everyone has gone home from the tower. Several examples are:
Providence, RI
White Plains, NY
Bloomington, IL
Moline, IA
Portland, ME
Burlington, VT
Sarasota, FL
just to name a small sampling. Its more of a funny story of people perceived to be important asleep in bed, rather than the real frightening issue that the pilots lacked the experience to do the right thing and land. Extrapolate this further, and these are the same guys who, if cleared to land while there is thunderstorm activity over the field, will go ahead and land anyway because they were cleared to land.
LarryB Dec 31st 2008 9:44AM
What a story about NOTHING. All pilots, including Piper Cub pilots to 747 pilots are trained in procedures of unmanned towers or no contact/no radio procedures around airports.
In this case pilot should have communicated his intentions to land over the tower freqency, or better yet, over GUARD frequency, which everyone is supposed to monitor, then land.
Pretty soon we'll all be in a padded room with feeding tubes so nobody gets hurt.
Robb Dec 31st 2008 9:47AM
What media hype. Just land. Remember air traffic controllers need pilots and airplanes so that they have a job - the opposite isn't so true.
Bill Dec 31st 2008 10:04AM
Pilots DO know what to do at an uncontrolled airport. We land all the time at airports with closed towers or having no tower. The guy was more dangerous circling for 30 minutes that following known and published rules of the air. There are procedures for landing with inop radios. Heaven help us if we have to have a radio to know how to fly.
Dorothy Dec 31st 2008 11:34AM
We land at uncontrolled airports all the time IN THIS COUNTRY... I am assuming that Zamboanga airport is not in the US??? I would be hesitant to begin an approach with a plane of that size without knowing whether or not some daredevil was gonna cross the runway in front of me at decision altitude. Yea, I guess you can always go around. I might go ahead and try it too, but only after exhausting all attempts to get a hold of a controller. It only takes one boo boo to kill a lot of people.
susan Dec 31st 2008 9:59AM
Leeann said: but for the majority of Pilots in the USA, we have the best in the world. I can't say the same for the attendants, but thankfully they do NOT fly the aircraft.
_________________________
What? did sumbudy miss their back-wub? Flight attendents are the ones who will save your ass in an emergency...not the pilots.
DKK Dec 31st 2008 10:00AM
Remind me never to fly in the Phillippines.... ;)
deadeye Dec 31st 2008 10:10AM
Actually, Robb, we pilots constantly remind ourselves that "we're (pilots) up here because they're (controllers) are down there." Hey, there are some good ones -- LAX has the best.
Erik Dec 31st 2008 10:20AM
Airplanes land at Airports with closed Control Towers every day. There are procedures for it and it's no big deal.
Brian Dec 31st 2008 10:24AM
This is such an example of the know-nothing press blowing something totally out of proportion. There are un-manned and non-tower airports all over the world and there are procedures for landing and taking off there. You call your intentions on the CTAF (common traffic advisory frequency) and land. No big deal. Why the pilot didn't go ahead and do that is beyond me.
Jack Nordby Dec 31st 2008 10:30AM
Land anyway !
Kathy Dec 31st 2008 10:38AM
I'd like to know who the last person out of the air traffic control room was? I think it should be mandatory that no one is to be the last one out!
Richard A Dec 31st 2008 5:22PM
"I'd like to know who the last person out of the air traffic control room was? I think it should be mandatory that no one is to be the last one out!"
Um, the last one out would have been the guy that locked up whern they closed the tower the night before. This was the first inbound of the day - the controllers never showed up in the morning to reopen.
Richard
Jack Dec 31st 2008 10:55AM
What is the most scary thing about this sitution is that the Polit did not land the plane unless he has some one in the control tower. that means this polit was not trained in landing at uncontroled air ports. Which in a lot of emergency has to happen. Some one had better check this polit ability. There would be no other air carfts on the run way, and this he should have been able to see on his first pass. Then he wasted all the fuel just circling, which he should not have done.
This polit is not qualified to handle this plane and should be grounded until he get more training.
There are lots of air field around the world that don't have control towers and there are also some emergency landing strips. What would he have done if he had to use these. He is a jerk and need to go back to school the learn how to fly an airplane.
Ed Dec 31st 2008 11:14AM
I would have landed anyway. There are many uncontrolled airports thru out the world...as long as intentions are broadcast over the common advisory frequency and the pilots watch for other traffic the landing would have been uneventful.
Richard A Dec 31st 2008 10:20PM
"Landing anyway" is what a pilot would do in the USA, or the UK.
This was in the southern Phillipines, in the heart of the area where Abu Sayef operates. Zamboanga is a pretty big city. The airport is a fairly large one.
Were I a Filipino pilot who arrived at a large commercial airport when it was supposed to be manned to find it silent, "one" of the possible scenarios that I would have to consider is "Maybe the terrorists killed the controllers and put mines on the runway, or are waiting with weapons trained."
Not landing until the tower opened was, in my opinion, the safe thing to do.
Richard
Rene Donk Dec 31st 2008 11:16AM
Much said anout nothing important. Pilots and attendents have different jobs and with all the flying I did, I have no complains. And I am 77 years young and of all those years and airmiles I put in I am still alive. I was in two mishaps. They both took place in Indonesia. One case the landing gear collapsed and the other was a seaplane in the bay of Balikpapan that caught on fire. I was involved in more car accidents with drunk drivers. My hats of to Pilots and flight attendents and traffic controllers and get the drunk drivers of the road.
Will Jan 1st 2009 9:48AM
We pilots land without the assistance of tower controllers thousands of times a day. It's no big deal at all and this story is just the ignorant media having to have space to fill.
Pilots communicate with each other if there is no ATC facility controlling an airport or airspace. We follow procedures that cover a communications failure or when there is no one to communicate with and 99.999% of the time, there is no compromise in safety.
As a matter of fact, most problems occur at airports where there are controllers working rather than the opposite.
Hippie Dec 31st 2008 11:21AM
Air traffic controllers in PI make about 18,000 pecos a month for one thing. And for the assinine comment about TSA just how many flights have been takenover since 911?