Who’s Watching the Watchers?
People regularly quiz us about FAA and self-imposed safety regulations, trying to define and understand them. And, now and then, they ask us to bend the rules “just a little bit” to accommodate an extra hour in their schedules or an extra couple of hundred pounds of payload. With an eight ton aircraft, what’s a couple hundred pounds between friends? After all, it won’t make much difference, right? I am surprised at how often they are surprised when we say no. Statistically, flying may be safer than driving, but bending the rules “just a little bit” isn’t how it stays that way. We stick to the rules because they are there to keep us, our aircraft, our crew, our passengers and the people on the ground safe. Bottom line – the cost of being wrong is just too high.
So, last night, when I was watching the news and I heard an adorable little exchange between a child in the air traffic control tower at New York’s JFK Airport and a JetBlue airliner full of passengers, I was absolutely dumbstruck, which you know is quite a feat if we’ve ever met. Hundreds of people’s lives were involved in that little exchange between a child who had gone to work with a parent and an airliner in an ACTIVE FLIGHT!!!
The Associated Press’ Joan Lowy wrote about this incident and others that shine a rather harsh light on Air Traffic Control and raises the question: Who’s watching the watchers?
In the case of Tiny Tyke ATC, the FAA has suspended both the controller and his supervisor pending an investigation, and the NTSB is holding a forum this spring to discuss pilot and air traffic controller professionalism. Do I think that the aircraft was in danger? No, the licensed controller was right there and the child was clearly repeating only what he was told to say. Now, do I think that it was an instance of colossally poor judgement? Absolutely. And, in this industry, more than in many, instances of colossally poor judgement cannot be ignored. The costs are simply too high.
There seems to be two camps on the whole “Tiny Tyke” ATC incident. From what I have seen, one camp is that this was simply harmless action by a caring parent who wanted to show his child what he did for a living. I actually saw some of the “talking heads” say that things have been “blown out of proportion”. I do NOT sit in this camp.
The second camp of pilots and professionals like me are absoutely outraged by the incredible lack of “common sense” by both this controller and his supervior. Really, who though this was a good idea!? It is a BLANTANT viotation of FAA regulations to have any unapproved and untrained individual in such a role. One rather astute talking head on the news pointed out the Aerfolot crash some years ago where a pilot actually had his 12 YEAR OLD SON flying the airplane. He accidently kicked off the autopilot and lead to a crash that killed everyone on board. It is entirelly possible that in different circumstances a distracted controller and incorrect commands could have lead to a tragic accident. Would we still think it was cute if people had been injured or killed?
This whole incident goes back to question of wether judgement can be trained. I believe in many cases it can, but I am increasinly concerned by a lack of good old fashioned common sense by some in and outside of the profession these days. We are EXPECTED to act like professionals at all times in aviation. Our lives and the lives of our passengers depend on it. I hope the controller and supervisor at JFK remembers those facts the next time their kids are in the tower for a visit.