From today’s Estado de Sao Paulo after an interview with a line pilot on the Rio-Sao Paulo shuttle. Liberal translation; apologies for any inaccuracies
Pilots and controllers disagree on procedures; mid-air arguments
Captains reveal: some ATC instructions against air safety
Mariana Barbosa (O Estado de Sao Paulo)
A happy pilot, at ease with life, is all passengers could ask for when entering an aircraft. And for the majority of pilots, flying has always been a great source of pleasure. That’s how it had been throughout the 28 year career of the Rio-Sao Paulo pilot of a large Brazilian airline. For the last six months, though, the job’s become stress itself. “I was always happy to go to work. But now, three hours before I leave home, I’m worried about how I’m going to handle the situations that arise, how I’m going to end the day, what time I’ll get home. My relationship with the job has changed entirely”, says the pilot, who prefers not to be named.
So-called safety procedures adopted by ATC after the Gol accident on 29th September and which have resulted in widespread delays and cancellations throughout Brazilian commercial aviation, have altered a longstanding relationship of trust between pilots and controllers. “We’ve always had a good relationship, controllers were our guardian angels”, says the captain, “and they still are, despite the crisis. But much of the trust is gone. You just don’t know whether what he’s asking for is really for the sake of safety or just to screw us up”.
These situations are now frequently winding up in heated arguments. And, since stronger language tends to generate infringement reports, pilots and controllers are going heavy on the irony and sarcasm, with pilots swearing only when there’s no risk of identification. Phrases like “that’s a lie”, “bull****”, “son of a bitch” tend to come from other aircraft on the frequency and who can’t be identified. When it reaches that level controllers are left with no option but to try to recover control with “let’s keep to standard phraseology”.
Pilots are complaining that some ATC instructions are unjustifiable and, often, run contrary to flight safety. For example, ATC authorize a departure but then order the aircraft to orbit for thirty minutes at low altitude until the requested airway is free or until the single controller has less than fourteen aircraft to handle.
The heavier the aircraft and the lower the flight level, the greater the fuel consumption. That generates cost for the airline; fuel is at least 30% of operating cost. But not just that; safety demands that an aircraft take off with sufficient fuel to reach its destination with sufficient reserves to land at an alternate, plus fuel for a further 30 minutes. “Circling for thirty minutes while heavy, at low altitudes, has a direct impact on flight safety”, says the captain.
According to him, instructions to circle at low levels right after takeoff were more commonplace early on in the crisis. “We explained to them how this procedure affected safety and that it was not the proper way to go about applying pressure. They no longer do that; now they ask us to circle nearer the destination. It’s not as bad but it’s still costly”.
Often, when the landing delay is too long, airlines opt to deviate flights to another airport. “Planes are deviating too often and there are too many landing at the limit in terms of fuel remaining”, the pilot says. The result is angry passengers who have to complete their journeys by bus. For crews it often means another day away from home. “My roster’s become an abstraction. We’ve been living in a state of emergency for six months now”.
According to the captain, these situations now occur more frequently on Fridays, at peak hours or when ATC is working to rule.
He also questions the veracity of some information transmitted by controllers to justify holdups: “Many times you might be approaching Congonhas and they ask you to hold over Santos because the apron’s full. When we check with our own ground staff they say it’s not true. The controller then says he got that information from the tower and that there are x aircraft in the hold ahead of us. That happens every day and it gets to a point that would try the patience of a Buddhist monk.”
Ends.
Comment:
Since the Gol accident pilots have been very quiet on the ATC subject. Less so now, nudged, perhaps, by the IFALPA release and by flight crew strike threats in Argentina, also related to ATC deficiencies.
Articles like the one above are appearing more frequently in the dailies and in weekly newsmagazines. Some, like this one, fairly straightforward, others a good deal more sensational. All of them bombarding the traveling public and, to some extent, "the other side"; this one critical of ATC which may, in turn, require someone in ATC to criticize pilots etc.
ATC staff, military and civil, don’t know which way to turn. Different factions have different objectives and they’ve now become pawns in a political struggle between the military – with their own internal differences of opinion – and the executive who, at first, signaled privatization but now dither.
There’s a phrase in Brazil, “Empurrar com a barriga”, literally translated as “To push with the belly”, i.e. nudge things along in the expectation that the opposition has no knives on his person – or in the hope they won’t be used. It’s a euphemism for lack of leadership or planning. The executive – and the military – have been doing that since well prior to the Gol accident. When knives do appear, though, it’s not always from the expected quarters; some rather large ones can be wielded by individual players – in ATC or on the flight deck.