Jet circles Zamboanga airport waiting for missing air traffic controllers

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12-31-2008 @ 9:00AM

Key said...

There are procedures for when the tower is unmanned or in case of radio failures. There are thousands of un-towered airports in the world and the procedures are the same at all of them. This should not have been a newsworthy item. I was flying once to a towered airport after a thunderstorm and could not reach the tower for landing clearance. I just followed the procedures for no tower and I (as well as many others) landed safely and with no problems. It turned out that lightning had hit the tower and fried all the radios. Airlines worldwide land at untowered airports using the same procedures. It's just a matter of the pilot in command of the plane using them properly. Again, this should not have been a major headline!!!

12-31-2008 @ 12:13PM

Kent Wien said...

Well said. Absolutely true. The tower frequency simply becomes a unicom (advisory frequency to other pilots in the area).

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