Shamrock A330 and New York tracon run-in
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Go and check out the stats.... London remains the busiest airspace in the world - ahead of New York by a significant margin. In fact the LHR, LGW, LTN, STN, CDG, ORY, RTM, AMS triangle is controlled by 3 different countries depite being a similar area size to New York ARTCC. Nobody gets shouted at, nobody gets angry and no controllers speak patronisingly to foreign aircraft as if they are idiots. Most importantly they remain professional with no macho BS.
I hope you get to read this before another of my posts gets taken down. I appear to have a knack of hitting the nail on the head.
I hope you get to read this before another of my posts gets taken down. I appear to have a knack of hitting the nail on the head.
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Go and check out the stats.... London remains the busiest airspace in the world - ahead of New York by a significant margin. In fact the LHR, LGW, LTN, STN, CDG, ORY, RTM, AMS triangle is controlled by 3 different countries depite being a similar area size to New York ARTCC. Nobody gets shouted at, nobody gets angry and no controllers speak patronisingly to foreign aircraft as if they are idiots. Most importantly they remain professional with no macho BS.
I hope you get to read this before another of my posts gets taken down. I appear to have a knack of hitting the nail on the head.
I hope you get to read this before another of my posts gets taken down. I appear to have a knack of hitting the nail on the head.
LHR is approx. 475,000 flights. JFK is 447,000, EWR is 450,000 and LGA is 368,000. Imagine putting EWR at Windsor Castle, JFK at the final approach fix for LHR 27L/R, and LGA at Big Ben. That would give you an idea of the density and NYC has. Or putting an airport with 550,000 flights between LHR and GTW(550,000 to bring the combined total to the NYC total)?
Adding in CDG and AMS? Adding them brings the total to 2.05 million flights in a triangle. NYC-DC is 2.3 million flights over the same distance. It's called 'the northeast corridor' for a region. That's not counting the greater number of GA movements the U.S. has.
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can someone please enlighten me how is this discussion even relevant? Shamrock asked for a 220 heading for 15 miles, it brings them South from JFK and away from all the mentioned airports and their SIDs/STARs as far as my eye can see. Give these guys what they ask for, turn them over the sea with wide easterly vector after 15 miles, job done. Looking back at the FR24 playbacks I just don't see the issue? Am I missing something?
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ATC, despite the "C" standing for control, is, ultimately an advisory service. It is the responsibility of the PIC to get the aircraft safely between A & B, and to take whatever measures he or she sees fit in order to do that. Of course non standard actions need to be justified but it is important to remember that the air traffic service is there to assist the pilot, not the other way around. If controllers are unhappy with the restrictions in airspace then they need to address their superiors and not get short with the flightcrew.
Go and check out the stats.... London remains the busiest airspace in the world - ahead of New York by a significant margin. In fact the LHR, LGW, LTN, STN, CDG, ORY, RTM, AMS triangle is controlled by 3 different countries depite being a similar area size to New York ARTCC. Nobody gets shouted at, nobody gets angry and no controllers speak patronisingly to foreign aircraft as if they are idiots. Most importantly they remain professional with no macho BS.
I hope you get to read this before another of my posts gets taken down. I appear to have a knack of hitting the nail on the head.
I hope you get to read this before another of my posts gets taken down. I appear to have a knack of hitting the nail on the head.
The 4 main NYC airports are controlled by one ATC entity as they effectively operate as one large airport. Not the case at all in what you are describing. Draw a 20 mile circle around those airports and there is no busier airspace anywhere. NYC approach control currently handles over 4000 flights a day not counting low altitude transient aircraft. In the 4pm to 8pm peak they are dealing with 350 to 500 flights an hour with convective weather activity a order of magnitude larger then LHR, CDG or AMS deal with.
Last edited by Sailvi767; 31st Jul 2018 at 01:26.
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Go and check out the stats.... London remains the busiest airspace in the world - ahead of New York by a significant margin. In fact the LHR, LGW, LTN, STN, CDG, ORY, RTM, AMS triangle is controlled by 3 different countries depite being a similar area size to New York ARTCC. Nobody gets shouted at, nobody gets angry and no controllers speak patronisingly to foreign aircraft as if they are idiots. Most importantly they remain professional with no macho BS.
I hope you get to read this before another of my posts gets taken down. I appear to have a knack of hitting the nail on the head.
I hope you get to read this before another of my posts gets taken down. I appear to have a knack of hitting the nail on the head.
Also, don't compare NY ARTCC to us. We are the New York Tracon or N90. Our airspace is a tiny fraction of ZNY's (NY ARTCC).
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can someone please enlighten me how is this discussion even relevant? Shamrock asked for a 220 heading for 15 miles, it brings them South from JFK and away from all the mentioned airports and their SIDs/STARs as far as my eye can see. Give these guys what they ask for, turn them over the sea with wide easterly vector after 15 miles, job done. Looking back at the FR24 playbacks I just don't see the issue? Am I missing something?
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Unreasonable, reasonable - is completely missing the point; sure ATC have structural problems in NYC but any action in the Commander’s opinion that is for the safety of the aircraft overrrides your concerns about pushing tin. We all know the airspace restrictions in NYC so for the Shamrock to determine they could not take the avoidance is the overriding factor, any inconvenience of the controller and their requirements become entirely subordinate to the requirements of the aircraft needing deviation. If that means departures are slowed down, delayed or halted, then so be it. NYC airports are not unique, LHR in bad weather is a nightmare of delays due to weather avoidance but it’s always safety before “throughput”.
All of that is true I’m sure N90 but at the end of the day we (the industry) don’t want to go too far down the road of pilots thinking that declining a heading is going to cause a gigantic headache for them ( this pilot probably has a headache by now). If the pilot had felt it was better to fly through the cell than increase the controllers workload, and as such accepted the clearance, and picked up hail damage and injured pax, we would all be wondering why he accepted the heading. We’d be saying things like “ who cares if they have to halt departures, just keep the aircraft safe, the controllers there are the best in the world they’ll conjure up a plan “.
This is really a storm in a tea cup in that nobody was hurt, two blokes got a fraction shirty with each other, job done.
This is really a storm in a tea cup in that nobody was hurt, two blokes got a fraction shirty with each other, job done.
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All of that is true I’m sure N90 but at the end of the day we (the industry) don’t want to go too far down the road of pilots thinking that declining a heading is going to cause a gigantic headache for them ( this pilot probably has a headache by now). If the pilot had felt it was better to fly through the cell than increase the controllers workload, and as such accepted the clearance, and picked up hail damage and injured pax, we would all be wondering why he accepted the heading. We’d be saying things like “ who cares if they have to halt departures, just keep the aircraft safe, the controllers there are the best in the world they’ll conjure up a plan “.
This is really a storm in a tea cup in that nobody was hurt, two blokes got a fraction shirty with each other, job done.
This is really a storm in a tea cup in that nobody was hurt, two blokes got a fraction shirty with each other, job done.
As for declining a heading, yes that is your decision as PIC. We are not debating that. We are in agreement that you must follow whatever course of action you deem is the safest for your aircraft. What followed the declining of the heading was a consequence of the airspace limitations, weather, and traffic situation he had at the moment. We don't do "penalty vectors". We don't want you on our radar scopes one second longer than needed, but we have set rules and procedures to follow, and safety is also our number 1 priority.
can someone please enlighten me how is this discussion even relevant? Shamrock asked for a 220 heading for 15 miles, it brings them South from JFK and away from all the mentioned airports and their SIDs/STARs as far as my eye can see. Give these guys what they ask for, turn them over the sea with wide easterly vector after 15 miles, job done. Looking back at the FR24 playbacks I just don't see the issue? Am I missing something?
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This was a no event as far as we are concerned. The ones that have made this a storm were the pilot, and the media (social media-forums, etc). The controller has had a great career that spans well over 3 decades working traffic here at the New York Tracon, and he is retiring at the end of the year with a max retirement. All that talk about "My boss will call your boss" means nothing. Bottom line he did nothing wrong from an operational point of view, it was reviewed, and declared a non event.
As for declining a heading, yes that is your decision as PIC. We are not debating that. We are in agreement that you must follow whatever course of action you deem is the safest for your aircraft. What followed the declining of the heading was a consequence of the airspace limitations, weather, and traffic situation he had at the moment. We don't do "penalty vectors". We don't want you on our radar scopes one second longer than needed, but we have set rules and procedures to follow, and safety is also our number 1 priority.
As for declining a heading, yes that is your decision as PIC. We are not debating that. We are in agreement that you must follow whatever course of action you deem is the safest for your aircraft. What followed the declining of the heading was a consequence of the airspace limitations, weather, and traffic situation he had at the moment. We don't do "penalty vectors". We don't want you on our radar scopes one second longer than needed, but we have set rules and procedures to follow, and safety is also our number 1 priority.
We're all stressful in times of bad weather and high traffic volumes. I think it helps if people can be nice to one another instead of being jerks.
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can someone please enlighten me how is this discussion even relevant? Shamrock asked for a 220 heading for 15 miles, it brings them South from JFK and away from all the mentioned airports and their SIDs/STARs as far as my eye can see. Give these guys what they ask for, turn them over the sea with wide easterly vector after 15 miles, job done. Looking back at the FR24 playbacks I just don't see the issue? Am I missing something?
Which LHR arrivals put you 14,000' high 20 nm from the airport?
Last edited by misd-agin; 1st Aug 2018 at 15:36. Reason: added LENDY and 14,000' comments
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I like the "overrides your concerns about pushing tin" comment. More like my concerns about tin not hitting more tin. Things to keep in mind reference this case. The controller in this instance is ONLY working JFK departures and he has ZERO control over the other traffic in the adjacent airspace. He has to contain aircraft under his control inside his allocated airspace. The other controllers are busy, and on nights like this very likely to be dealing with their own issues with weather deviations. Controllers workloads skyrocket every time there's deviations like this.
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He did make a new plan, which is the same plan any of us would had done: Hold him until a gap to go back over GREKI became available. The only thing he did wrong was getting into a verbal contest with the pilot, which I agree was unnecessary. I'd argue that the "my boss will call your boss" parting shot from the pilot was also uncalled for as well.
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Other than perhaps being verbally impolite, can someone tell me what the ATC did wrong? Shamrock said he couldn't turn left, ATC airspace restrictions say he can't continue on runway heading, so ATC turned him right. After an orbit or two, Shamrock asked for a direct route to GREKI, but such a route was impossible from his current orbiting location without intruding on LGA airspace. Further, the ATC had other planes (who presumably did turn left) in a line traveling to GREKI. When a break in this line was feasible, Shamrock was inserted into the mix. End of story other than for the willy-waving by Shamrock and ATC's retort that it was Shamrock's refusal to turn left that is what caused the orbits. So tell me, what is incorrect about this narrative? Other than being more polite, what should ATC have done differently?
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This is New York. He was polite. These guys handle GA traffic popping up out of nowhere and Heavies not taking to anyone with style. The vast majority of the time you can hear the humor in Approach & Finals instructions. Flying in this airspace almost every day there's nowhere I'd rather be..
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Other than perhaps being verbally impolite, can someone tell me what the ATC did wrong? Shamrock said he couldn't turn left, ATC airspace restrictions say he can't continue on runway heading, so ATC turned him right. After an orbit or two, Shamrock asked for a direct route to GREKI, but such a route was impossible from his current orbiting location without intruding on LGA airspace. Further, the ATC had other planes (who presumably did turn left) in a line traveling to GREKI. When a break in this line was feasible, Shamrock was inserted into the mix. End of story other than for the willy-waving by Shamrock and ATC's retort that it was Shamrock's refusal to turn left that is what caused the orbits. So tell me, what is incorrect about this narrative? Other than being more polite, what should ATC have done differently?