Jet circles Zamboanga airport waiting for missing air traffic controllers

Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.

I was flying the pattern at a US Airport shortly before 1800 on Christmas eve.

Dusk, two parallel runways open, the helicopter school operating from 4 pads, four or five light planes doing touch and goes, and a fairly steady stream of incoming and outgoing flights, with traffic ranging from my 152 through Lears and Citation jets.

At 1800 the tower controller stopped his traffic controlling to say "XXX tower to all traffic. The time is now 1800 and the tower is closed. Have a Merry Christmas."

The result? Apart from several "Merry Christmases" back to him, a resounding "So what?" Airports all around the world operate with no towers every day of the year. The only reason the pilots circled instead of following uncontrolled airport landing procedures is that one worries, if a suposedly manned tower is silent, whether there's a major problem on the ground. Zamboanga is, after all, in the heart of Abu Sayef country.

Richard

Add your comments

Your comments:

Remember me

E-Mail me when someone replies to this comment

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.