Connex,
airfield ground to a complete halt because of an airfield incident directly attributable to incorrect SAMOS information being relayed by an ATSA who was found to have received insufficient training?
Well, all I can say is that this hasn't happened here. The most extreme scenario I suppose would be incorrect reporting of altimeter pressure settings causing an accident. At LGW, mis-reporting of cloud ceiling or visibility when we're on Northern Runway Ops could lead to severe difficulty, because it's a visual runway using SRA. Thankfully, perhaps because of the way SAMOS was introduced here, it's worked out well, from the outside looking in, at least.
I try not to be drawn on the 'big airport - little airport' debate, having worked at both locations - LHR was smaller when I worked there not so many years ago than LGW is now. LGW is now the world's busiest single-runway airport by a huge margin - 31 million pax and 275,000 ATM per year. Our NATS unit does a superb job, they make it all seem so easy when I know it isn't sometimes.
The Odd One