Originally Posted by
73qanda
All of that is true I’m sure N90 but at the end of the day we (the industry) don’t want to go too far down the road of pilots thinking that declining a heading is going to cause a gigantic headache for them ( this pilot probably has a headache by now). If the pilot had felt it was better to fly through the cell than increase the controllers workload, and as such accepted the clearance, and picked up hail damage and injured pax, we would all be wondering why he accepted the heading. We’d be saying things like “ who cares if they have to halt departures, just keep the aircraft safe, the controllers there are the best in the world they’ll conjure up a plan “.
This is really a storm in a tea cup in that nobody was hurt, two blokes got a fraction shirty with each other, job done.
This was a no event as far as we are concerned. The ones that have made this a storm were the pilot, and the media (social media-forums, etc). The controller has had a great career that spans well over 3 decades working traffic here at the New York Tracon, and he is retiring at the end of the year with a max retirement. All that talk about "My boss will call your boss" means nothing. Bottom line he did nothing wrong from an operational point of view, it was reviewed, and declared a non event.
As for declining a heading, yes that is your decision as PIC. We are not debating that. We are in agreement that you must follow whatever course of action you deem is the safest for your aircraft. What followed the declining of the heading was a consequence of the airspace limitations, weather, and traffic situation he had at the moment. We don't do "penalty vectors". We don't want you on our radar scopes one second longer than needed, but we have set rules and procedures to follow, and safety is also our number 1 priority.