Originally Posted by
Buster the Bear
Back in the 1990s, Luton had a serious problem. Took a good while to find the culprits, but it was children using their dad's transceiver. He was learning to fly at the airport and lived very locally. Handy back then when it first happened to have an Aldis lamp, so land on the green. I remember a Britannia 757 on long final at about 0400 on a lovely summer morning, I had said that there was an inspection is progress on the runway and continue. About a min later the crew then said 'Britannia xxxx, cleared to land runways 26'. We then had a quick discussion and it landed safely using my RT backed up with light signals. I know I shouldn't laugh, but one busy Sunday afternoon, I transferred G-OCAA to the tower, crew called then all we heard was 'man in the tower in a c***! Pilot flying the CAA HS125 denied saying it! Meanwhile, some of us in radar were laughing and agreeing with the child's comments on the R/T! Seriously though, if you have an idiot with a transceiver, it can be a serious safety issues.
Similar time, different offender - one of the female controllers was threatened over the r/t & I was told I'd been followed home previously & my wife would be attacked in the house whilst I was working...not pleasant...