operative
everyone, take a deep breath.
was the control tower operative?
no
definition of operative: operative - being in force or having or exerting force;
as to Lord Spandex...obviously not thinking like a real pilot. Let's say you came in with the wrong freq dialed up. An operating tower would keep calling you with landing clearance...UNLESS...dum dum DAHHHHHH:
They didn't want you to land. And if they couldn't give you landing clearance and couldn't get you to respond to go around instructions, A PROPERLY OPERATING TOWER WOULD USE THE LIGHT GUN AND GIVE APPROVED LIGHT GUN SIGNALS (FIELD HAD GOOD VISIBILITY) for either landing clearance or not cleared to land.
AS this didn't happen, the tower was INOPERATIVE and the pilots made a command decision and landed. He used the english language and the tower was not exerting force ( in the form of radio calls) and thus was inoperative.
I truly hope Lord Spandex doesn't wear spandex and doesn't fly EVER in the USA.
It all comes down to what we do here in the USA if the traffic signals on the road become IN OPERATIVE (the operative word). We then treat the inoperative traffic signal as a stop sign, we stop and WHEN SAFE TO DO SO , ENTER THE INTERSECTION, observing regulatory right of way.
Lord spandex mentions the scenario about what if you had an emergency on landing...would you wait for sleepy to wake up? NO, I would take out my cellphone, and as captain would authorize myself to use it and call 911 and get help.
And if my plane blew up on landing, the very competent fire department at DCA would almost certainly notice how bright things got, or the SMELL OF JET FUEL IN THE MORNING>
Lord Spandex...I believe you should divert every flight you ever make...but be sure to divert to yourside of the atlantic.