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ATC communication is fascinating to me. I go down the Youtube rabbit hole a few times a month. A few things that always stand out to me... - the calm demeanor

ATC communication is fascinating to me. I go down the Youtube rabbit hole a few times a month. A few things that always stand out to me... - the calm demeanor shown by both ATC and pilots. Even in situations that make me cringe sitting at my laptop, everybody involved is steady. I know it's their job, but it still amazes me. - the complexity of airport operations at a major international is mind-boggling. Hand-offs from ground to tower to departure... and then back again if something goes wrong. And doing that for dozens of planes at a time. Some crewed by pilots with thick accents or static-y radios. - that air travel is the safest form of transit given the complexity of engineering and human processes involved is truly astounding. I know today's successes are the result of all previous tragedies; it's still something else. I live under the main international approach to IAD. Watching the heavies fly in makes me smile. Especially the A380. It's a shame the A380 didn't find a long-term market - looking up, it shouldn't be able to fly, but there it is.

jcranmer 3y ago
> the calm demeanor shown by both ATC and pilots. Even in situations that make me cringe sitting at my laptop, everybody involved is steady. I know it's their job, but it still amazes me. It's actually probably not as amazing as it seems. I was just on a high ropes course, and it's similar to ATC in that if things go pear-shaped, there is just nothing that you can do. So when I saw something going wrong [1], the instinct I had to immediately run and try to help was suppressed, and instead I (and everybody else) was essentially in the same calm-and-collected mood. [1] Admittedly, this is wrong in the "abnormal operation" sense, not "immediate risk to life" sense.
- reddit_clone 3y ago
  What is amazing to me is how do Pilots stay calm when their own lives are under imminent threat?
  - stall84 3y ago
    I've had just one definite emergency experience and it's only 1 data point to draw on, and it's definitely not going to be the same for everyone flying.. You drill for emergency situations during training, and you should drill repeatedly afterwards. Any ATP rated pilots do so regularly whether in actual flight or in simulators. But one flight very early, before I had my pilot's license, flying on a student's permit.. I ran out of fuel during cruise flight.. It was dumb, it was a case of me being a poor just-out-of-college student, and trying to do some very risky calculus with the flight planning and fuel required. There were extenuating factors including the (small) plane's fuel gauges malfunctioning sporadically .. having to 'stick the tank' on the ground (measure the fuel in the plane's wings by using a ruler and chart for how many inches equaled gallons). .. excuses aside. I ran out of gas at 8000 feet above Columbus Georgia .. What I remember happening is the engine abruptly lurching, then stopping, sending a massive amount of adrenaline through me. But almost immediately I started looking for a runway to land at. I knew I had at least 1, maybe 2 airports in range of a glide, and one was relatively in front of me, so I decided on it, and called ATC in Atlanta who were following my flight at that time & declared a 'pan-pan' (step below a mayday .. meaning you have a serious situation on board & require priority attention if available, but you are still in control of the aircraft). They confirmed the vector to the (abandoned, but still in decent condition) airport a few miles in front of me. Now.. Your original question is probably answered at this point... Basically as long as you can continue to have things to do .. As long as you can envision and work toward a goal (landing the f'n plane safely) .. The stress of the situation tends to just fuel the focus on getting to that goal. I can't say its going to be the same for every pilot, and maybe it isn't . I did grow up obsessed with flying (after being absolutely horrified by it as a child), and so I had kind of gone over in my mind and in training over and over again this potential type of situation occurring and I wasn't about to let the moment get to big. This kind of thing does worry me a little bit with our recent explosive need for pilots as commercial aviation expands rapidly. A lot of pilots are going through "0 to ATP" courses to get a good paying job, rather than because they're actually obsessed with flying itself.. Because in those cases, I'm not sure what is going to happen psychologically for those pilots. Again though, this is why you are constantly drilled and trained on these situations, so that you have almost muscle-memory of things to be doing in an emergency situation so that there is no time for you to sit passively and become a victim of circumstance.
  - lmm 3y ago
    What would panicing gain them? Honestly if anything it's more amazing that people still go into panic at all - it seems almost like a kind of learned helplessness thing.
BrentOzar 3y ago
> the calm demeanor shown by both ATC and pilots My ex-wife was a US air traffic controller, and the training they go through is stunning. They're tested continuously for years, with something like an 80% wash-out rate. During testing, they get 1-2 tests per week, working a shift just like a controller would, with fake pilots on the radio, and real computer systems. If they let airplanes get even remotely close to each other, they fail. If it happens twice, they're out of the FAA, immediately, permanently. One of the instructors told me, "It's my job to make sure your wife has the worst week of her career, every week, during training - so that when she's actually on the job, every week will seem easy no matter what she's facing." Even just in training, you could see the stress take its toll on the candidates over the years.
- reddit_clone 3y ago
  Good to know. I am glad it is such a strenuous training/testing. It has to be, given the price of failure. Hmm.. Are there incidents that were caused by Controller's error? (most common seem to be equipment failures, pilot errors, bad weather and bad luck with bird strikes etc.)
  - krisoft 3y ago
    > Are there incidents that were caused by Controller's error? There is a nice wikipedia list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Aviation_accidents_and_incidents_caused_by_air_traffic_controller_error https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Aviation_accidents_an... Of course I don't think it is correct to say that an incident were caused by controller error. It makes it sound like a single controller error was the only thing which went wrong. It is probably more correct to say that controller error contributed to the outcome of some incident.
  - throwaway34655 3y ago
    Tell me you didn't read the article without telling me you didn't read the article :)
    - reddit_clone 3y ago
pc86 3y ago
As they say, every regulation is written in blood. An exaggeration for sure, but not by much. Many regs can point to a specific, not always fatal crash or series of incidents as the reason it exists.
- JackFr 3y ago
  Another great expression I've heard is 'tombstone technology' for pieces of hardware created in response to a particular tragedy.
didntknowya 3y ago
idk there's plenty of black box recordings of pilots panicking when a crash is imminent. ATC controllers on the other hand have training and physically don't have much to lose.
Mawr 3y ago
> A few things that always stand out to me... - the calm demeanor shown by both ATC and pilots. Even in situations that make me cringe sitting at my laptop, everybody involved is steady. I know it's their job, but it still amazes me. - "not an emergency" https://www.youtube.com/shorts/bugknVx5NZ0 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/bugknVx5NZ0 - "delta 1943, cancel takeoff clearance" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIiPt1YVkP8&t=581s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIiPt1YVkP8&t=581s
banannaise 3y ago
> A few things that always stand out to me... - the calm demeanor shown by both ATC and pilots. Even in situations that make me cringe sitting at my laptop, everybody involved is steady. I know it's their job, but it still amazes me. disclaimer: I might be talking out my ass It really seems that crisis response is bimodal. Either you almost completely panic, or you're almost completely focused. Complete focus makes for very clear, focused communication. (Extensive training on procedures, communication, and not panicking certainly helps as well.)

jcranmer 3y ago

> the calm demeanor shown by both ATC and pilots. Even in situations that make me cringe sitting at my laptop, everybody involved is steady. I know it's their job, but it still amazes me. It's actually probably not as amazing as it seems. I was just on a high ropes course, and it's similar to ATC in that if things go pear-shaped, there is just nothing that you can do. So when I saw something going wrong [1], the instinct I had to immediately run and try to help was suppressed, and instead I (and everybody else) was essentially in the same calm-and-collected mood. [1] Admittedly, this is wrong in the "abnormal operation" sense, not "immediate risk to life" sense.

reddit_clone 3y ago
What is amazing to me is how do Pilots stay calm when their own lives are under imminent threat?
- stall84 3y ago
  I've had just one definite emergency experience and it's only 1 data point to draw on, and it's definitely not going to be the same for everyone flying.. You drill for emergency situations during training, and you should drill repeatedly afterwards. Any ATP rated pilots do so regularly whether in actual flight or in simulators. But one flight very early, before I had my pilot's license, flying on a student's permit.. I ran out of fuel during cruise flight.. It was dumb, it was a case of me being a poor just-out-of-college student, and trying to do some very risky calculus with the flight planning and fuel required. There were extenuating factors including the (small) plane's fuel gauges malfunctioning sporadically .. having to 'stick the tank' on the ground (measure the fuel in the plane's wings by using a ruler and chart for how many inches equaled gallons). .. excuses aside. I ran out of gas at 8000 feet above Columbus Georgia .. What I remember happening is the engine abruptly lurching, then stopping, sending a massive amount of adrenaline through me. But almost immediately I started looking for a runway to land at. I knew I had at least 1, maybe 2 airports in range of a glide, and one was relatively in front of me, so I decided on it, and called ATC in Atlanta who were following my flight at that time & declared a 'pan-pan' (step below a mayday .. meaning you have a serious situation on board & require priority attention if available, but you are still in control of the aircraft). They confirmed the vector to the (abandoned, but still in decent condition) airport a few miles in front of me. Now.. Your original question is probably answered at this point... Basically as long as you can continue to have things to do .. As long as you can envision and work toward a goal (landing the f'n plane safely) .. The stress of the situation tends to just fuel the focus on getting to that goal. I can't say its going to be the same for every pilot, and maybe it isn't . I did grow up obsessed with flying (after being absolutely horrified by it as a child), and so I had kind of gone over in my mind and in training over and over again this potential type of situation occurring and I wasn't about to let the moment get to big. This kind of thing does worry me a little bit with our recent explosive need for pilots as commercial aviation expands rapidly. A lot of pilots are going through "0 to ATP" courses to get a good paying job, rather than because they're actually obsessed with flying itself.. Because in those cases, I'm not sure what is going to happen psychologically for those pilots. Again though, this is why you are constantly drilled and trained on these situations, so that you have almost muscle-memory of things to be doing in an emergency situation so that there is no time for you to sit passively and become a victim of circumstance.
- lmm 3y ago
  What would panicing gain them? Honestly if anything it's more amazing that people still go into panic at all - it seems almost like a kind of learned helplessness thing.

BrentOzar 3y ago

> the calm demeanor shown by both ATC and pilots My ex-wife was a US air traffic controller, and the training they go through is stunning. They're tested continuously for years, with something like an 80% wash-out rate. During testing, they get 1-2 tests per week, working a shift just like a controller would, with fake pilots on the radio, and real computer systems. If they let airplanes get even remotely close to each other, they fail. If it happens twice, they're out of the FAA, immediately, permanently. One of the instructors told me, "It's my job to make sure your wife has the worst week of her career, every week, during training - so that when she's actually on the job, every week will seem easy no matter what she's facing." Even just in training, you could see the stress take its toll on the candidates over the years.

reddit_clone 3y ago
Good to know. I am glad it is such a strenuous training/testing. It has to be, given the price of failure. Hmm.. Are there incidents that were caused by Controller's error? (most common seem to be equipment failures, pilot errors, bad weather and bad luck with bird strikes etc.)
- krisoft 3y ago
  > Are there incidents that were caused by Controller's error? There is a nice wikipedia list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Aviation_accidents_and_incidents_caused_by_air_traffic_controller_error https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Aviation_accidents_an... Of course I don't think it is correct to say that an incident were caused by controller error. It makes it sound like a single controller error was the only thing which went wrong. It is probably more correct to say that controller error contributed to the outcome of some incident.
- throwaway34655 3y ago
  Tell me you didn't read the article without telling me you didn't read the article :)
  - reddit_clone 3y ago

pc86 3y ago

As they say, every regulation is written in blood. An exaggeration for sure, but not by much. Many regs can point to a specific, not always fatal crash or series of incidents as the reason it exists.

JackFr 3y ago
Another great expression I've heard is 'tombstone technology' for pieces of hardware created in response to a particular tragedy.

didntknowya 3y ago

idk there's plenty of black box recordings of pilots panicking when a crash is imminent. ATC controllers on the other hand have training and physically don't have much to lose.

Mawr 3y ago

> A few things that always stand out to me... - the calm demeanor shown by both ATC and pilots. Even in situations that make me cringe sitting at my laptop, everybody involved is steady. I know it's their job, but it still amazes me. - "not an emergency" https://www.youtube.com/shorts/bugknVx5NZ0 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/bugknVx5NZ0 - "delta 1943, cancel takeoff clearance" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIiPt1YVkP8&t=581s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIiPt1YVkP8&t=581s

banannaise 3y ago

> A few things that always stand out to me... - the calm demeanor shown by both ATC and pilots. Even in situations that make me cringe sitting at my laptop, everybody involved is steady. I know it's their job, but it still amazes me. disclaimer: I might be talking out my ass It really seems that crisis response is bimodal. Either you almost completely panic, or you're almost completely focused. Complete focus makes for very clear, focused communication. (Extensive training on procedures, communication, and not panicking certainly helps as well.)