The most Critical Situation you faced before !!!
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Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Egypt
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The most Critical Situation you faced before !!!
hay my captains, 
i am not yet ATCO but i will be so soon ISA i'm just new graduated.
ofcourse during your work hours you may face abnormal situations.
yes that what i want from you,,,
just write the most critical situation you faced before, try to act like an author in your writing to attract us as must as you can so as to make us live the situation with you, and then tell us about your reactions, then read the members comments on that situation....
and to obtain a nice time which may produce some experience to some of us, let's make a coordination as ATC units
the 1st to read that topic and has a situation shall write it,
then no one add any other situations, just send me a private message and i will make an announcement with the second situation in order, subject to the order of messages came to me from the members. ( that is my suggestion to ensure good analyzing for the situation and to discuss it in a perfect way )
also if you did a mistake in any previous situation during the work and you wanna share it here without permission to any body to know, just send it to me in a private message and i will write it for you.
all of that is just suggestions from me to exchange experience between each other,
please even you will not participate here just tell us about your opinion , don't read and go.
Waiting for your posts.
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i am not yet ATCO but i will be so soon ISA i'm just new graduated.
ofcourse during your work hours you may face abnormal situations.
yes that what i want from you,,,
just write the most critical situation you faced before, try to act like an author in your writing to attract us as must as you can so as to make us live the situation with you, and then tell us about your reactions, then read the members comments on that situation....
and to obtain a nice time which may produce some experience to some of us, let's make a coordination as ATC units
the 1st to read that topic and has a situation shall write it,
then no one add any other situations, just send me a private message and i will make an announcement with the second situation in order, subject to the order of messages came to me from the members. ( that is my suggestion to ensure good analyzing for the situation and to discuss it in a perfect way )
also if you did a mistake in any previous situation during the work and you wanna share it here without permission to any body to know, just send it to me in a private message and i will write it for you.
all of that is just suggestions from me to exchange experience between each other,
please even you will not participate here just tell us about your opinion , don't read and go.
Waiting for your posts.
--------------------------
Cap.hany
Join Date: Mar 2007
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Cap.hany, please habibi, can you post in a normal font? Also, controllers are not captains! You will get more replies if you remember that....
In the spirit of comradeship (Eid Mubarak, by the way), after 13 years or so in ATC, the following is a partial list of situations I've faced. Most controllers will have a similar list.
Radar failure
Radio failure (at ATC - resolved with use of stand-by radios)
Radio failure (aircraft)
Engine failures
Assymetric flap deployment
Partial hydraulic failures/hydraulic leaks
Nosewheel steering failure
Cracked windshields (yes, plural!)
Level/altitude busts
Language "issues"
Weather avoidance
Unknown fast traffic popping up into controlled airspace ("one o'clock, half a mile, going up....")
Zone infringements
Runway infringements
Flooded taxiway
Overheating Spitfire shutting down on a narrow taxiway
Fire in avionics bay/smoke in cockpit
and a few more besides. Also, on a Lufthansa 747-400, it really p*ssed me off that every other passenger seemed to be using the toilet seat cover dispenser as a garbage bin. I once slept in and was half an hour late for a morning shift, and got soundly berated by the WM while I was plugged in.... And the time I was asked to escort a group of "young ladies from British Airways" around the tower, they turned out to be a captain's 11-year old daughter and her school chums rather than the trolley dollies I was hoping for.
In the spirit of comradeship (Eid Mubarak, by the way), after 13 years or so in ATC, the following is a partial list of situations I've faced. Most controllers will have a similar list.
Radar failure
Radio failure (at ATC - resolved with use of stand-by radios)
Radio failure (aircraft)
Engine failures
Assymetric flap deployment
Partial hydraulic failures/hydraulic leaks
Nosewheel steering failure
Cracked windshields (yes, plural!)
Level/altitude busts
Language "issues"
Weather avoidance
Unknown fast traffic popping up into controlled airspace ("one o'clock, half a mile, going up....")
Zone infringements
Runway infringements
Flooded taxiway
Overheating Spitfire shutting down on a narrow taxiway
Fire in avionics bay/smoke in cockpit
and a few more besides. Also, on a Lufthansa 747-400, it really p*ssed me off that every other passenger seemed to be using the toilet seat cover dispenser as a garbage bin. I once slept in and was half an hour late for a morning shift, and got soundly berated by the WM while I was plugged in.... And the time I was asked to escort a group of "young ladies from British Airways" around the tower, they turned out to be a captain's 11-year old daughter and her school chums rather than the trolley dollies I was hoping for.
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All of Scoobys list (well, apart from the Spitfire),
plus whilst on watch -
a mid air between a police helicopter and a light aircraft,
A tail dragging aircraft taxying into a ground vehicle, almost decapitating the work experience kid in the passenger seat,
2 fighters returning with extensive damage after colliding during ACM (outstanding flying to get them both back)
Two fatal crashes, one involving a dear friend
plus whilst on watch -
a mid air between a police helicopter and a light aircraft,
A tail dragging aircraft taxying into a ground vehicle, almost decapitating the work experience kid in the passenger seat,
2 fighters returning with extensive damage after colliding during ACM (outstanding flying to get them both back)
Two fatal crashes, one involving a dear friend
StandupfortheUlstermen
Join Date: Dec 2001
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2 hours in Radar on a Sunday morning while a succession of selfish b****rds cook fry ups in the kitchen, one level below the ACR! 
Join Date: Dec 2008
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Spilt my coffee down the Hadleigh box
Trapped the supervisors arm between the PAR and director console causing so much screaming everyone thought she was being murdered
Asked to turn TV down coz Corrie was too loud
Mayday C177 with total electrics failure IMC, had a mobile phone and an altimeter working (talked him down into another airport on the DFTI - imagine getting away with that nowadays)
Toppled off chair
Ejected from radar room for laughing too much (it was a competition to see who could get kicked out first)
Went home with tower key in my pocket during an exercise (yup, there was only one)
Gassed by muppet painting the intake of the radar room air conditioning system
Made rude controller tea with a tea bag specially selected from the bin
F4 double flameout (nav didn't make it, RIP, 31 years ago but will never forget)
Hijacked Sudanese Airbus
BAe146 with missing oil seals, two engines shut down, one at idle and the other being thrashed to death
Trapped the supervisors arm between the PAR and director console causing so much screaming everyone thought she was being murdered
Asked to turn TV down coz Corrie was too loud
Mayday C177 with total electrics failure IMC, had a mobile phone and an altimeter working (talked him down into another airport on the DFTI - imagine getting away with that nowadays)
Toppled off chair
Ejected from radar room for laughing too much (it was a competition to see who could get kicked out first)
Went home with tower key in my pocket during an exercise (yup, there was only one)
Gassed by muppet painting the intake of the radar room air conditioning system
Made rude controller tea with a tea bag specially selected from the bin
F4 double flameout (nav didn't make it, RIP, 31 years ago but will never forget)
Hijacked Sudanese Airbus
BAe146 with missing oil seals, two engines shut down, one at idle and the other being thrashed to death
During an airshow a bi-plane reported a possible fire. Aerodrome fire service would not answer crash phone so after landing I told the aircraft to taxi across the grass to the fire station car park.
Join Date: Aug 2002
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Walking into the ACR in time to see 3 supervisors, 2 LEOs and 6 fully qualified controllers sit and watch a sep loss develop on final approach without doing anything to prevent it.
Most critical
Five Thirty a.m. and all was quiet in the ACC; the managers, supervisors, techs and assistants would all start arriving about 6. The IT techs had recently shown us the secret way to put video games on the sector radar displays. Now we couldn't get the bloody video games off the Departure display or the East Sector display. The only solution was to disable both and complain loudly to the arriving dayshift about the display failures . . .
I guess a close second would be the time we found out that a Danger Area was hot with SAM firings (USA Airspace) after we'd been running aircraft through it for 40 minutes . . .
I guess a close second would be the time we found out that a Danger Area was hot with SAM firings (USA Airspace) after we'd been running aircraft through it for 40 minutes . . .
Join Date: Mar 2008
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A couple of years ago I had a really bad run as an ATCO with multiple accidents on my watch. Nothing ATC wise, just the standard hydraulic failures, electric failures, RCF's that kind of thing. I was complaining to a buddy of mine about this just before he flew down to his private strip down south. Not 5 minutes after getting airborne he yells "MAYDAY" and tells me that he was doing an emergency landing on the beach.
My response: "Rob?! Are you joking?!"
Rob: "I wish, I have a fire in the cockpit..."
Glad to say he was able to put her down safely on the beach and all was fine. Conisdering the severity of the situation, we were able to have a good chuckle that night over some beers...
My response: "Rob?! Are you joking?!"
Rob: "I wish, I have a fire in the cockpit..."
Glad to say he was able to put her down safely on the beach and all was fine. Conisdering the severity of the situation, we were able to have a good chuckle that night over some beers...