Atlanta ATC
Just curious as to how often this happens from a mere observer point of view.
I was listening to Atlanta arrivals yesterday afternoon and due to large CB overhead and around the field, all aircraft were in the hold, or diverting to alternates. An aircraft wanted to know if they were gonna attempt approaches into Atlanta. Reason, they had a developing medical emergency on-board and they were unsure as to where they were gonna go. Arrivals advised that they do have an aircraft scouting out a route to the closet available runway. Too see if they could get in.
The Aircraft advised it would keep the arrival controller in the loop and advise further on the medical. After about 2 minutes, the same aircraft asked if the aircraft had made it in, which it did, but returned that it was too gusty and turbulance was a little severe, so the holds continued. The aircraft with the medical said that a doctor on-board had advised they need to get on the ground soon. Could they make it into Atlanta?
The controller turned around and said, well, if you wanna try it you can, but after the last report, you may not want too.
The aircraft said well, we are unsure if we should start the descent from the hold, into Atlanta if we ain't gonna Make it.
The controller said " Not unless you say the magic word?" I gues He was refering to declaring an emergency
The aircraft said "well, stand-by..."
The aircraft came back up and said " Arrivals, If we can make it into Atlanta, we would like to start descent, if not we would like to head over to Knoxville, our alternate."
Arrivals, advised the right turn direct knoxville, descend to FL 130, and gave the altimeter. I am assuming that the controller was sick of messing around any further, with around 20 aircraft in his area, and the fact that the pilot was both indisicisive regarding declaration of an emergency and whether he should divert
2 Questions:
1) Due too the indecisiveness of the captain, it was kinda obvoius that the controller made the decision for the captain. Does this happen frequently when a pilot is indescisive?
2) With respect to large thunderstorms, is it normal for aircraft to "scout" a route for arrivals? I am sure with the increased reliability of wx radar that they would know what is a clear route to the final approach fix, or not. Seems a little risky to "scout" round a largew CB with passangers in back.