Come to think of it, a few of those pilots were also violating sterile cockpit rules by engaging in non-essential chatter with the kid and likely with one another in discussing it. If the FAA wanted to come down hard on sterile cockpit violations (as they might, due to the publicity and release of the final report on the Colgan crash and the NTSB recommendations that went with it), this is a perfect opportunity to do so. It would be severe, but just might get the point across.
Look, I found it cute too. I’m sure the pilots did, and probably other controllers. People take pride in their work and it’s fun to be able to show friends and family what you do. Pilots can’t take their kids into the cockpit anymore though, and with good reason. For very similar reasons, ATC shouldn’t be brining their kids into the control tower. It’s a distraction, and any distraction could lead to an accident or incident during a critical phase of flight. Sure, the pilots do these manoeuvres all the time. So does ATC. And most of the time, things go off without a hitch. But no one expects an engine flame-out above V-ref. No one expects wing stalls on take-off, no one expects hydraulic failures and landing gear collapses on landing, etc. But these things happen, nearly every day and so the rules must be in place with that in mind. The industry must assume the worst is about to happen, and work to prevent it, because otherwise the consequences are too devastating.
There have been crashes because of lax pilot and ATC attitudes. Unfortunately, there will be more, but shouldn’t we be working to prevent them? This is a gift-wrapped situation for the FAA to show they are serious about air safety, and if I worked for them, I’d be all over it, just to prove a point. Sure, nothing happened now. But what if?
And I fully agree with 1920’s Death Ray. The equivalency I keep thinking of is my dad putting a 7 year old me on his lap while driving and letting me “steer.” I wasn’t actually driving the car, and if something went wrong, the cops would have raked him over the coals; but I’m willing to bet that a good percentage of people got to “drive” the family car when they were a kid.
That act alone isnt gawd awful stupid or dangerous. But on the flip side, it IS not the safest way to do things either.
Accidents are sometimes caused by one really big stupid thing mistake, intentional stupidity,or just plain bad luck. However, many accidents are a series of minor mistakes or less than optimum procedures that ALL together lead to disaster. And many times, if you take out just one of em, the disaster would have never happened. THATS why you NEVER do “little bad things” unless you have a damn good reason. Not because its OMG dangerous, its that it could part of a chain just “waiting” to be put into place.
The Aeromexico pilot and Jetblue pilot whose transmissions have been featured all over CBS and NBC news (if not also all the cable nets) very clearly knew what was going on. The Aeromexico pilot return the kid’s poorly pronounced “adios” and the Jetblue pilot said something to the effect of “good job dude.” And I imagine that he’d know.
Yes, inappropriate, but inappropriate does not always translate to “worthy of job loss” or in this case, even “worthy of being the **top **story on national news broadcasts.”
Anecdote from a friend who’s worked ATC at PIT for 24 years: “Don’t know many pilots who’ve called in to the tower and heard a kid, but I’ve called many a plane and heard one.” (It’s not allowed any more but that’s more post-9/11 restrictions on anyone in the cockpit than specific anti-kid rules.)
Having spoken to an actual air traffic controller about this incident, he wasn’t surprised in the least that pilots were largely, “Hey, no biggie.”, about it. Because they have almost all put their kid into the cockpit for a little ride at one time or another. He insisted they were, by nature chance takers so it wouldn’t set them off, the same as others.
That said, he maintained that universally other air traffic controllers were appalled by this behaviour, finding it more than ill advised and a simple silly misjudgment. After all ATC’s are all about safety and good judgment and this action flies in the face of both of those standards. Following protocol is an enormous part of being a good ATC, this was clearly an egregious breach.
While he didn’t think the guy should automatically lose his job, he reckoned most ATC’s felt he should be swiftly, publicly and severely sanctioned. Oh, and he said this man has pretty much guaranteed there will never be another advancement in his career, if he keeps his job. He felt it could cost him his job but in a down the road, kind of way. Seemingly not over this one incident, but effectively so.
He intimated that this fellow would be wise to think about moving to another country where ATC’s are thin on the ground, feeling if he stays here he may find himself in some backwater of an airport, probably demoted to ground control for the remainder of his career.
CNN said that the audio file of the transmission was posted on liveatc.net, an air traffic control communications website. I don’t know if the recording is still available there.
I think whoever posted about how you would explain things if an accident did happen while your kid was on the microphone had the most germane argument - don’t do things at work that you’re going to have trouble explaining later. Yeah, he got away with it this time - that’s not the point at all.
Here’s a question: What would have happened if this young child had thrown a temper-tantrum at the mike? If he’d decided that he was mad at his father, and so was going to be as disruptive as possible - screaming into the microphone, hitting every button within reach, and so on.
How long could this kid have disrupted the safe operation of traffic control for? One second? Two? Three? Remember, a struggling seven-year old kid can be hauled off by an adult male - but it isn’t necessarily fast, or easy. For how long can traffic control operations safely be disrupted? Is there any safe duration for such a thing?
Maybe this ATC knew his kid was well-behaved. Maybe the kid is a genuine freaking saint. But as I understand it, commercial aviation is all about eliminating predictable risk - even slight risks - through the use of carefully scripted procedures. Putting this child into the position he was in introduced an additional, and totally unecessary, element of risk. That is unacceptable.
Actually, that aeroflot accident would be more like putting your kids in the front two seats, then the parents climbing in the back seat. Bit different.
Still a stupid idea, but the autopilot was on. Unfortunately, the autopilot was disconnected by the son applying control forces to the yoke, and the ap disconnect did not have a chime or aural warning as they do today. A subtle turn became a steeper bank, and subsequent G forces prevented the pilots from regaining their seats to recover control of the aircraft until it was too late.
Yes, I read it. The combination of smileys that I included in my reply to Ravenman was meant to convey knowingly humorous hyperbole, but I guess our smiley vocabulary is a bit rudimentary.
Another pilot here. I have 2000 hours, most of it talking to ATC, and I have flown in and out of JFK. I come down on the side of the other pilots in this thread.
At no time was safety compromised, the controller was always in control, etc, etc. But the controller still probably shouldn’t have done that, mostly because the FAA is known to have no sense of humor.
And I think the best analogy put forth in this thread is the “please drive around to the window” one. All of the calls I heard were totally routine, and I have no doubt that if anything remotely complicated were about to happen, the dad would have hushed up the kid.
I don’t think anyone disputes that nothing happened, and Dad was ready to step in.
However nothing changes that kids are unpredictable. What if junior didn’t feel ready to quit the game when Dad said? What if he tried to hang on, y’know, the way kids do? Could have flipped a knob, or a switch, all in a split second.
What if something totally unpredictable had happened while junior was on Dad’s lap, there has to be a split second delay to delap the kid. It is going to impede Dad’s reaction time.
I don’t doubt he chose his moment, to pull this stunt. But there is an overridingly good reason why people entrusted with this position demonstrate good judgment, each time, every time.
The judgment of pilots notwithstanding, I’d go with what others actually holding this position think, every time.
IMO the reason commercial air travel IS so safe is EXACTLY because the FAA has no sense of humor. A “little humor” could burn up a lot of safety fast.
Plenty of accidents of happen as a result of trivial shit that isnt glaringly dangerous. The problem is millions of flights occur. It may be relatively safe to do once, but anything that is even remotely risky once becomes just asking for trouble when done millions of times. If its not a good idea to do it all the time, its not IMO a good idea to do it period.
Now, if you want to argue about certain FAA rules that actually make things less safe thats a whole nother debate. But I doubt no kiddy ATCs is part of that group.
I wonder what the pilots thought. Maybe some kid playing a prank and is broadcasting on the same frequency? I would think it would make them hesitate. I would HOPE it would make them hesitate.
No, I wouldn’t argue that. But I would say that no amount of regulation takes the place of a person’s good judgment. The rules are there to help in making good decisions, not replace the thought process entirely.
In this particular case we have a skilled professional making the judgment that having his kid parrot a few words on a microphone will not have an impact on safety. It would also have the benefit of brightening the day of his co-workers, and giving the kid a thrill that he might remember for the rest of his life.
If that was his thought process, I agree with his reasoning. Where I think he got it wrong was how it might be viewed by others looking at it from the outside. This is not the same as the engineer texting while driving a train. The professionals in the field of aviation (at least in this thread) have pretty well said there was no compromise of safety. Contrary to what the papers have said, the kid was NOT “controlling” airplanes. The father, an ATC professional was in control. He simply let the kid be his mouthpiece.
If I were in charge, here’s how this would be handled:
FAA supervisor: OK, that’s enough. Very funny, Bob. Don’t do that again.
