I didn't hear anything said deliberately over the radio that was inappropriate except for some unnecessary comments by some flight crew. Unless you're Mother Theresa everyone has said something at one time under their breath, or even out loud when they thought the mike button was cold and were not transmitting.
I'm with the fellow that said he would have died laughing if I had heard that. The controller should certainly be embarrassed but that's about it. No fine or reprimand is warranted since the controller did not know he was transmitting.
YYZ Controller With Stuck Mic: $5000 Fine
Moderators: sky's the limit, sepia, Sulako, lilfssister, North Shore, I WAS Birddog
I didn't hear anything said deliberately over the radio that was inappropriate except for some unnecessary comments by some flight crew. Unless you're Mother Theresa everyone has said something at one time under their breath, or even out loud when they thought the mike button was cold and were not transmitting.
I'm with the fellow that said he would have died laughing if I had heard that. The controller should certainly be embarrassed but that's about it. No fine or reprimand is warranted since the controller did not know he was transmitting.
I'm with the fellow that said he would have died laughing if I had heard that. The controller should certainly be embarrassed but that's about it. No fine or reprimand is warranted since the controller did not know he was transmitting.
I didn't hear anything said deliberately over the radio that was inappropriate except for some unnecessary comments by some flight crew. Unless you're Mother Theresa everyone has said something at one time under their breath, or even out loud when they thought the mike button was cold and were not transmitting.
I'm with the fellow that said he would have died laughing if I had heard that. The controller should certainly be embarrassed but that's about it. No fine or reprimand is warranted since the controller did not know he was transmitting.
I'm with the fellow that said he would have died laughing if I had heard that. The controller should certainly be embarrassed but that's about it. No fine or reprimand is warranted since the controller did not know he was transmitting.
I didn't hear anything said deliberately over the radio that was inappropriate except for some unnecessary comments by some flight crew. Unless you're Mother Theresa everyone has said something at one time under their breath, or even out loud when they thought the mike button was cold and were not transmitting.
Somehow, I don't think that that female pilot whom to which he obviously was referring to, feels the same way. The controller made a mistake. I would not fine him or reprimand him in any way if it were up to me. I am sure he feels terrible enough as it is. Pretty much the whole Canadian aviation community and then some, has or will hear of this event before the week is over. However, I think it would be in good character for the controller to apologize via a personal letter to that pilot.
Also, there was no need for that Air Canada pilot to pipe up with his remark. Not professional in any way either. Can't we just all get along, sigh....
Also, there was no need for that Air Canada pilot to pipe up with his remark. Not professional in any way either. Can't we just all get along, sigh....
...Seems they are going to remove the axe and the control column from the cockpits for security reasons.
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Cat Driver
- Top Poster
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If a remark made with a stuck mike is such a stressful problem for any pilot that they can't deal with it emotionally at the time it occured, God help their passengers when something truly stressful occurs.
The hardest thing about flying is knowing when to say no
After over a half a century of flying no one ever died because of my decision not to fly.
After over a half a century of flying no one ever died because of my decision not to fly.
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Axial Flow
- Rank 7
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Just an apology would suffice after the incident to everyone on frequency that wasn't laughing their ass off. I have only been saved by the little T on the radio lots of times where I could have been in the same boat as many of us could be.
It's a good thing the AC guy piped up, otherwise the controller wouldn't have realized he slipped up. Might have been the same guy on clearance when a pilot had a quick conversation at Pearson with the controller and he came on the radio and yelled
"Hey some of us have to work here !"
It's a good thing the AC guy piped up, otherwise the controller wouldn't have realized he slipped up. Might have been the same guy on clearance when a pilot had a quick conversation at Pearson with the controller and he came on the radio and yelled
"Hey some of us have to work here !"
A general statement? In which case I would agree. That female pilot dealt with it pretty calmly. Had it been me, I would have given him a piece of my mind LOL and that would have been the end of that.
It seems however, said controller, was not able to "deal with his emotions" at the precise time it occured, as evidenced by his rude remark.
So, should we say, God help us, just because the controller couldn't control his emotions because he assumed someone was ignoring his call? Of course not. I don't think anyone has "stressed out" about this issue.
I just don't think it was funny.
On a sidenote though, we all make mistakes and screw up on the radio. I just find the C word so revolting and disrespectful and would not even use it on my worst enemy, even if my mike was unplugged. Just tells me a lot of what I think of that controller, to which I will keep to myself. But that is just my opinion...
And yes, it was a good thing that the AC guy "piped up". However, a simple, "By the way, it was 'your' mike that was open" would have been better. That would have put him on edge for a while until I'm sure he would have pulled the tapes and realized...what a dumb [censored] he was. Incidentally, had nothing been said by our captain AC father mr. morale, I can assure you the controller would have found out sooner than later. News travels very, very fast, and scanners are everywhere, recording every single word being said just waiting like a circling eagle for its prey, to be posted all over the internet. This ain't 1985 no more...
It seems however, said controller, was not able to "deal with his emotions" at the precise time it occured, as evidenced by his rude remark.
So, should we say, God help us, just because the controller couldn't control his emotions because he assumed someone was ignoring his call? Of course not. I don't think anyone has "stressed out" about this issue.
I just don't think it was funny.
On a sidenote though, we all make mistakes and screw up on the radio. I just find the C word so revolting and disrespectful and would not even use it on my worst enemy, even if my mike was unplugged. Just tells me a lot of what I think of that controller, to which I will keep to myself. But that is just my opinion...
And yes, it was a good thing that the AC guy "piped up". However, a simple, "By the way, it was 'your' mike that was open" would have been better. That would have put him on edge for a while until I'm sure he would have pulled the tapes and realized...what a dumb [censored] he was. Incidentally, had nothing been said by our captain AC father mr. morale, I can assure you the controller would have found out sooner than later. News travels very, very fast, and scanners are everywhere, recording every single word being said just waiting like a circling eagle for its prey, to be posted all over the internet. This ain't 1985 no more...
Last edited by Redwine on Fri Jan 05, 2007 1:41 pm, edited 2 times in total.
...Seems they are going to remove the axe and the control column from the cockpits for security reasons.
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Jeremy Kent
- Rank 3
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- Location: Guelph, ON
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Flying Nutcracker
- Rank 6
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Seems to me the one that dealt with this in the most professional manner was the female Jazz pilot... To the point and move on with the flight!
AC just made YYZ centre look worse...the damage was already done... let it go!
A stuck mic is a pain in the a! It can paint a thousand pictures!
AC just made YYZ centre look worse...the damage was already done... let it go!
A stuck mic is a pain in the a! It can paint a thousand pictures!
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invertedattitude
- Rank 10
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EEP,
Your post, although entertaining, borders on the ludicris....
Now before your pilot induced egotistical mind begins to question any rebuttal I may have allow me to invest a moment of your exhausted iced out 14hr time. I have many years of military flying experience and many years of ATC experience to qualify my rant.
First off I question your experience based on your initial post. Any pilot with some ink in the log book would surely know that a terminal controller doesn't sit in a tower. We prefer to sit our cozy asses down in the quaint confines of a centre. (Thats where we move IFR traffic!!!). That said, let us begin.
Have you ever taken the time out of your busy schedule to actually visit a high volume IFR unit such as YYZ? Or better yet, the terminal specialty within the unit? If so then the following would be quite obvious to you.........
YYZ is a high volume unit. Aircraft are metered in and out of this airport constantly. Pressures on controllers, especially terminal controllers can be very demanding (not cozy). Dynamic factors persist daily, such as weather, runway conditions, runway configurations, flow times, staffing, ground delays, gate availability, etc, etc, etc. At peak operating hours under optimum runway configuration (utilization of the 3 parallels) the runway acceptance rates are quite high. Controllers are vectoring to minimum spacing to minimize delays and optimize arrival and departure movements. Computers print off flow rates but controllers make it work so that aircraft aren't holding at bedposts waiting to be metered in. YYZ terminal is fed by four bedposts optimizing 10 mile spacing into the terminal by all four. At peak periods I have faith even you can figure out how many aircraft are entering the terminal every minute. That does not even include departures. The terminal can become saturated very quickly.
Minimum spacing by pilots and companies is not an assumption but rather a DEMAND by the users.
Do you have any idea how much work it is to pull an aircraft out of the sequence during capacity? Do you have any idea what impact this has on existing aircraft in the terminal and aircraft being sequenced in the peripheral whether in or outside the terminal? Ahhhh, yes the "I'm the only plane in the sky" theory does NOT apply here. Controllers in high density sectors work extremely hard to minimize ANY delays to aircraft and are damn proud of how they do it. Absolutely NO one I know sits on their cozy ass just to piss your 14hr overworked crybaby, imature, ego off. It is you who is unprofessional by admittance of your naivity.
To run at minimum spacing, timing of speed and vectors is a controllers bread and butter. If working in this environment someone misses a call or misses a turn, a direct resultant would be a verbal release of frustration. Examples or parallels can be drawn by pilots under pressure as well. It just happens that the controller in question had the unfortunate luck of having his mic stuck at the time. It happens to everyone irrelavent of what side of the mic you are on.
IFRATC
Your post, although entertaining, borders on the ludicris....
Now before your pilot induced egotistical mind begins to question any rebuttal I may have allow me to invest a moment of your exhausted iced out 14hr time. I have many years of military flying experience and many years of ATC experience to qualify my rant.
First off I question your experience based on your initial post. Any pilot with some ink in the log book would surely know that a terminal controller doesn't sit in a tower. We prefer to sit our cozy asses down in the quaint confines of a centre. (Thats where we move IFR traffic!!!). That said, let us begin.
Have you ever taken the time out of your busy schedule to actually visit a high volume IFR unit such as YYZ? Or better yet, the terminal specialty within the unit? If so then the following would be quite obvious to you.........
YYZ is a high volume unit. Aircraft are metered in and out of this airport constantly. Pressures on controllers, especially terminal controllers can be very demanding (not cozy). Dynamic factors persist daily, such as weather, runway conditions, runway configurations, flow times, staffing, ground delays, gate availability, etc, etc, etc. At peak operating hours under optimum runway configuration (utilization of the 3 parallels) the runway acceptance rates are quite high. Controllers are vectoring to minimum spacing to minimize delays and optimize arrival and departure movements. Computers print off flow rates but controllers make it work so that aircraft aren't holding at bedposts waiting to be metered in. YYZ terminal is fed by four bedposts optimizing 10 mile spacing into the terminal by all four. At peak periods I have faith even you can figure out how many aircraft are entering the terminal every minute. That does not even include departures. The terminal can become saturated very quickly.
Minimum spacing by pilots and companies is not an assumption but rather a DEMAND by the users.
Do you have any idea how much work it is to pull an aircraft out of the sequence during capacity? Do you have any idea what impact this has on existing aircraft in the terminal and aircraft being sequenced in the peripheral whether in or outside the terminal? Ahhhh, yes the "I'm the only plane in the sky" theory does NOT apply here. Controllers in high density sectors work extremely hard to minimize ANY delays to aircraft and are damn proud of how they do it. Absolutely NO one I know sits on their cozy ass just to piss your 14hr overworked crybaby, imature, ego off. It is you who is unprofessional by admittance of your naivity.
To run at minimum spacing, timing of speed and vectors is a controllers bread and butter. If working in this environment someone misses a call or misses a turn, a direct resultant would be a verbal release of frustration. Examples or parallels can be drawn by pilots under pressure as well. It just happens that the controller in question had the unfortunate luck of having his mic stuck at the time. It happens to everyone irrelavent of what side of the mic you are on.
IFRATC
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Flying Nutcracker
- Rank 6
- Posts: 469
- Joined: Wed Mar 10, 2004 3:14 pm
Amen to that!
Well put IFRATC! I think alot of pilots would be well off to visit the other side of the microphone once in a while. To me it was a big eyeopener. I went from asking for shortcuts and a more preferrable runway for arrival to just accepting my number in the line after visiting one of your units. The "what about me?" attitude changed to "how can I make your life easier?". The tremendous workload and the impressive CRM that is displayed at any Terminal or Centre and ATC in general is something us pilots take for granted!
And we all know how irritating it is when the people we talk to don't listen... you use words of frustration to make them listen! Or just get a stuck mic...
Keep up the good work!
Well put IFRATC! I think alot of pilots would be well off to visit the other side of the microphone once in a while. To me it was a big eyeopener. I went from asking for shortcuts and a more preferrable runway for arrival to just accepting my number in the line after visiting one of your units. The "what about me?" attitude changed to "how can I make your life easier?". The tremendous workload and the impressive CRM that is displayed at any Terminal or Centre and ATC in general is something us pilots take for granted!
And we all know how irritating it is when the people we talk to don't listen... you use words of frustration to make them listen! Or just get a stuck mic...
Keep up the good work!
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the_professor
- Rank (9)
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- Joined: Thu Sep 21, 2006 3:03 pm
Amen IFRATC and Nutcracker.Flying Nutcracker wrote:The "what about me?" attitude changed to "how can I make your life easier?". The tremendous workload and the impressive CRM that is displayed at any Terminal or Centre and ATC in general is something us pilots take for granted!
When I was flying (before controlling) and visited an ACC, I was blown away by how much work the average controller is doing OFF the frequency. I would estmate that an average controller's workload is only about 40%-50% represented by activity on the frequency. There is a sh*tload going on behind the scenes that a pilot is completely unaware of, unless they've been on a tour to see it for themselves.
"Calling centre, say again" is not usually a reflection of a lazy, inattentive controller. It's because they've answered three phone lines and two hotline calls while trying to listen to a/c transmissions at the same time.
Visit a centre and you'll be less frustrated by a lack of understanding of what ATC does.
Good post, IFRATC.
It should be part of a professional pilot's career development to visit a centre and see how it looks on the other side of the fence. You have eloquently described what it is like in the real world....in REAL time.
The controllers take great pride in their skills in maximizing flow in capacity-limited airports, and the face enough stresses minute by minute without us adding to them.
The world they work in is fantastic and complex. The communication infrastructure and coordination has to be seen to be believed, and once you do, you will come away with a completely different point of view.
It should be part of a professional pilot's career development to visit a centre and see how it looks on the other side of the fence. You have eloquently described what it is like in the real world....in REAL time.
The controllers take great pride in their skills in maximizing flow in capacity-limited airports, and the face enough stresses minute by minute without us adding to them.
The world they work in is fantastic and complex. The communication infrastructure and coordination has to be seen to be believed, and once you do, you will come away with a completely different point of view.
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electraguy
- Rank 4
- Posts: 225
- Joined: Tue Jan 09, 2007 10:33 pm
Oooops
Wow, I have heard some interesting things over the radio, but thats a first. I am sure it was an honest mistake, how many of us have muttered the odd nasty comment after our radio call when things just were not going right, unfortunatly this guy just didn;t realize his mic was stuck. I suppose maybe a quick cause check after the lack of reply would have saved him 5g's. Either way, he sounded pretty stressed and I am sure this was the capper to an already s%^tty day. Either way, too all you ATC folk, keep up the fine work keeping us from trading paint!
Son, Your gonna have to make your mind up about growing up and becoming a pilot.. You can't do both!!
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The Velvet Fog
- Rank 2
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- Joined: Thu Jun 01, 2006 7:31 pm
- Location: YYZ
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invertedattitude
- Rank 10
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- Joined: Tue Jul 06, 2004 1:12 pm
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eep...2 Green
- Rank 3
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- Joined: Tue Apr 20, 2004 12:49 am
IFRATC you have certainly clearly stated in your post that air traffic controllers have a stressful job. You should spread that around, I don't know if the whole world knows about that. Nevertheless, your drive to work is the most dangerous part of your day. There is more to those blips on a screen than a couple of lighted pixels.
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eep...2 Green
- Rank 3
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- Joined: Tue Apr 20, 2004 12:49 am
EEP,
I think I have clearly stated a few more facts that you again naively choose to disregard. The point of the post was not to define the stress of ATC but rather the dynamic factors of both pilot and ATC; and to give an idea to those pilots that do ingest knowledge what happens in our environment.
I get the impression that on occassion more than a few words of frustration have seeped from your lips directed at ATC. Lucky your mic wasn't stuck!!
IFRATC
I think I have clearly stated a few more facts that you again naively choose to disregard. The point of the post was not to define the stress of ATC but rather the dynamic factors of both pilot and ATC; and to give an idea to those pilots that do ingest knowledge what happens in our environment.
I get the impression that on occassion more than a few words of frustration have seeped from your lips directed at ATC. Lucky your mic wasn't stuck!!
IFRATC
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invertedattitude
- Rank 10
- Posts: 2353
- Joined: Tue Jul 06, 2004 1:12 pm
Why don't they just make getting your ATPL, to have a requirement to sit with an enroute controller for a shift, then an approach controller for a shift, than even a tower guy for a shift.
3 days for an Airline pilots entire career? Imagine how much more knowledge and respect pilots would get for ATC?
I mean I've flown jump, I've seen what you guys go through during certain phases of flight, a lot of work to do that I'm sure many controllers aren't aware of. FAM flights need to return.
3 days for an Airline pilots entire career? Imagine how much more knowledge and respect pilots would get for ATC?
I mean I've flown jump, I've seen what you guys go through during certain phases of flight, a lot of work to do that I'm sure many controllers aren't aware of. FAM flights need to return.
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2milefinal
- Rank 6
- Posts: 429
- Joined: Fri Jul 07, 2006 7:36 pm
invertedattitude wrote:Why don't they just make getting your ATPL, to have a requirement to sit with an enroute controller for a shift, then an approach controller for a shift, than even a tower guy for a shift.
3 days for an Airline pilots entire career? Imagine how much more knowledge and respect pilots would get for ATC?
I mean I've flown jump, I've seen what you guys go through during certain phases of flight, a lot of work to do that I'm sure many controllers aren't aware of. FAM flights need to return.
Now that sounds like good idea.
