Ummmmm hello? Read the post above this and tell us that again. It increased the potential that is already there everyday by ten fold. Eventually she'll have a drivers license too. How's that grab ya? You better watch out, I drive a fast car and have big feet.
Yay! An internet argument! What I want to know is; why isn't the kid being penalised? Lives were at risk here, and this kid thinks he can get away with it? The father should have been hitting him over the head and yelling "WRONG!" after each and every transmission, no matter what he said.
Ignoring for a minute how bad the actual danger was, there is NO way this guy shouldn't have realized that this would bite him in the ass. I'm a pilot, and while we have more leniency than controllers, the FAA has zero patience for any kind of screwing around from anybody. They were obviously going to notice too. It might have gone unreported if he worked the tower at Bumfuck Regional Airport in North Dakota, but the JFK-Laguardia-Newark airspace is one of the busiest in the world. As for it being a big deal over nothing, well if I was the guy the kid was talking to, Id be laughing my ass off right up until I realized there's an airliner about to turn me into confetti.
This just seems so incredibly stupid to me. The chance is very tiny that anything will go wrong under ideal circumstances, but that chance still exists. This just compounds that chance by adding a dumb and needless variable to the situation. In these circumstances, why do that? Just shows no common sense among the ATCs at issue and that lack of common sense alone should be enough to dismiss them. Add to the fact that they put lives at additional risk, even if just minimally, no way should they continue the job (and if something did happen, they would and should be criminally liable). The opinions of the ATC and pilot on this board make me even more comfortable in my opinion. So is it true what they say about ladies with big feet?
For anybody who has studied the causes of airline disasters in depth, it's immediately obvious that something as simple and stupid as this could potentially be a factor in the loss of lives. Almost every accident is the result of numerous small factors that combine to produce a deadly situation. The number one cause by far is pilot error. The majority of crashes by far occur during takeoff and landing. Pretty recently there was a crash where a pilot encountered the wake of another plane while taking off and tried to counter it by swinging the rudder back and forth. He did it just a little bit too hard and the tail of the plane broke off, killing everyone aboard. Here's the tape of both days (apparently he did this twice in a row). Now maybe letting the kid clear one plane for departure, with his dad right there is probably not going to cause anyone any harm. But sitting there and letting a small child clear multiple planes in a peak time at a one of the worlds busiest airports? For two days in a row? You bet your ass that that scenario could easily escalate, in combination with other factors that are almost always present when you fly. This kid is hamming it up with the pilots, distracting them from what they should be doing, which is concentrating on the takeoff checklist and maintaining a sterile cockpit. Sterile means there is no extraneous conversation, no joking around, no talking about the fucking Olympics or your barbeque next Saturday. If it sounds harsh then ask yourself if you would prefer to put your lives in the hands of a pilot that is completely focused on their job or one that is chuckling and bullshitting with a toddler on the radio. This dude deserves at least a suspension. I'm sure he and the other people present thought it was funny at the time, but it really, really wouldn't be funny if two airliners collided on a runway and killed 300 people. There's a reason airline travel is so safe. Everything about it is held to a standard that would make your job look like a shift at the local burger joint.
After reading the story I came to the conclusion that this guys is a complete fuckwit. How did he NOT foresee that this would turn into a shit storm? Weather it's been blown out of proportion or not, there was no way this was NOT going to end badly. Playing devils advocate for a minute.... Airline travel these days is a drama. People stand in line for hours, shoes are taken off, no liquids, swabbed for explosives.. then they let a KID talk to the pilot that's flying the plane? Now if you'll all excuse me, I have to take my kid to work and let him play with the ventilator that's keeping your mother alive. What? I'll be right there with him, nothing could possibly go wrong.
My Dad was a drunk when I was a kid (not now)- so by age 6 I knew how to counter-steer while he was driving to keep our car on the road. And no, I honestly do not have Daddy issues.
In terms of dangerous shit that goes on, this doesn't even reach the 'it may be a problem' level. I can't believe an entire country's day of news centered around this. I'm sorry, but if the guy put his kid on the radio - this probably wasn't a pushing tin scenario.
Yet another "when I lived in Africa" analogy. Here goes: When I lived in Africa, it brought me to a whole different level in terms of what I believe children are capable of. Every single rural African family I saw worked like this: dad had at least one 'wife' and several girlfriends, or multiple wives. Each wife had a baby and nursed it. Once it was weaned, it was handed off to any kid over the age of seven in the family and didn't have a great deal of contact with the adults again. It was the most common thing in the world to see a group of 2-4 year olds, playing by the side of the road (literally the side of the road - the rocky place between the asphalt and the grass), every two or three hundred yards. And the older kids? The twelve- and thirteen-year-olds? Not uncommon for them to be the head of the family if the parents were sick or drunk or not around. I bring this up only to illustrate that our culture has gradually turned into one that sees children as helpless, clueless and vulnerable. They need to be wrapped in plastic until the age of 18 (or 21 in the States!), and they are in constant danger of the pedophiles and the kidnappers and the carseats with improper seatbelts and peanuts and Venetian blinds and and and. Not so. I don't think the father made the wisest decision in the world, given the nature of his job. However, I put it in the context of my life. If my dad decided when I was seven or eight to bring me into work, show me around, and let me touch some of the machinery (my dad manages really, really big construction sites. The ones they make Discovery programs about), and I was under his constant supervision, there would be no danger of anything going wrong. He'd have the sense to pick a time where it was safe, and he'd be vigilant that I was not doing something that could harm myself or others. I don't see the need for the hysterical outcry regarding this guy's decision. Kids are smart, and under the direct supervision of an experienced adult who cares for them they are highly unlikely to cause harm.
The incident itself wasnt dangerous, but it could've very easily caused a catastrophe. Air traffic control isn't a job that leaves any margin for error, and any minor fuckup can kill hundreds. The fuss is all about the lack of professionalism displayed in an extremely sensitive job. Even harmless acts can show an irresponsibility that makes people question whether you should be in charge of hundred-ton balls of metal and flammable liquid hurling through the sky at hundreds of miles an hour. Listen to the guy who's been working that exact job for a decade. Edit: I'm not saying controllers can't ever relax, but NYC area during busy hours isn't a place to even think about screwing around. Especially not in a way that literally broadcasts it to the entire area
I think all the above posts are pretty close to the nub of it all. 1. This particular ATC is a knucklehead. He made a dumb-ass decision and should be slapped like a red-headed step-child. 2. How would you feel about hearing this news if you had just cleared all the inane security and bullshit with the inevitable idiot at the ticket counter? 3. Who the hell else is taking their kid to work with them? I'm sure that no one on this board wants to hear about their contractor using seven year olds to hang their cabinets and set their foundations. (Unless there's a savings in cost.) Maybe we can somehow appeal the child labor laws, our education system is in the toilet so what the hell.
When I was 12 I started racing go karts and moved up to a 125cc shifter karts at the mature age of 14. The form of karting I was involved in at the time took place on race car tracks, way big for a go kart so the speeds were incredibly high. I was thrust in to a machine capable of 120 mph while racing mere inches from each others completely open wheels and many times pushing each other around the track. Why the sanctioning body, parents, etc thought this was okay I don't know, but I had a freaking blast and it taught me to be responsible with other peoples lives ESPECIALLY WHEN I'M BEHIND THE WHEEL OF A VEHICLE (read that you cell phone talking/texting while driving dolts). I would probably let my kids do it (if I had any) but I also think they should raise the minimum age to 18.
There are even more factors to consider here. Pilots have to trust us with their lives. If I have to issue a "Turn left heading XXX immediately" and the pilot doesn’t trust me, he hesitates and perhaps dies. This kind of stupid shit gives us all a bad name. Again, this is an extreme circumstance but it has happened to me. Sometimes the determining factor between fired for incompetence and jail for negligence can be a single word. Obviously not every minute is high stress and life or death but how safe can you feel knowing the guy responsible for your life in the air is letting his kid do his job. I have had many people tell me "Well the pilot can refuse to do something if it's stupid or unsafe" Yes he can, he has that right. The pilot however has a very limited view of the air traffic around him. That comes back to trust. They do what we tell them because they believe we are in complete control of the air traffic environment and not our children. I don't mean to rant on this but it's something I feel very strongly about. The safety of the people under my control is my single greatest priority and to do anything to jeopardize that is unthinkable.
Yeah, kids are smart. And it's not like they were put in charge of directing giant metal tubes travelling at high speeds full of explosives and people. Oh, wait. Seriously, though - you're right that North America infantilizes children (more accurately, adults) to our general detriment. But there's an enormous distinction between every example you just mentioned (little girl wandering around a huge construction site, African kids raising themselves, 12-13 year olds running a household) and an untrained 10 year old directing air traffic. I mean, there are two problems with that: someone who's entirely untrained being allowed to direct air traffic, and a 10 year old directing air traffic. This is the most reasonable proposition running around the thread. A cost-benefit analysis yields: an enormous potential cost, and an absolutely trivial benefit. I don't see how a responsible professional would do this. I think at least part of the "don't care" sentiment in this thread is driven by a backlash to the media devoting an entire day to the issue, including the focus on the "10 year old" part. If this ATC had let a random buddy with absolutely zero knowledge of start calling out directions over the net, there should be the same reaction.
What many people are forgetting or ignoring here is that there is such a thing called "dangerous fun" and we should all embrace it. I'm for kids controlling air traffic, flying planes, driving cars, disarming roadside bombs, calling NFL games, working crab boats, oil rigging, running with scissors and tying skateboards to ATVs.
I don't see such a big distinction, provided you don't distort the truth. This really isn't a situation where "an untrained ten-year-old was directing air traffic." In the article's own words: The way I imagine this is the father hovering directly over the child, seeing everything he would normally see at his console and hearing everything over the radio. He was responding, and allowing the kid to speak into the mic. For less than a minute each time. To direct planes on the ground. In theory, yes, this could go catastrophically wrong, but provided the controller has common sense and is good at his job, the odds are miniscule. In fact, in a situation like that where the guy has his child AND is performing some forbidden task (like letting the kid sit at the chair), I'd wager that he was paying even closer attention to what was going on than he would be if he was simply working a nine hour shift. I say again: although I'm not suggesting children become regulars at dangerous jobs, I don't think this particular situation is worth the outcry.
Come on, we've had a pilot and an air traffic controller point out that extremely time-sensitive situations can pop up where there is not an acceptable margin of error for the kid to improperly relay a message from his dad to the planes. I really don't care that the odds are "miniscule". If the ATC were a professional, he wouldn't needlessly raise any risk to the people who are trusting him, not to mention paying him, to see them safely to their destination. That's pretty much the sticking point for me. It was a useless exercise to bring a smile to a kid's face. Wrong. If the kid fucked up in relaying what his dad said, there could be serious consequences where the kid is unharmed and lots of other people are. If you went up to a piece of equipment on a construction site when your dad didn't say it was ok, then you would have died and nobody else. Big fucking difference.
He had none if he had the kid there in the first place. We had an Air Traffic Controller post in this thread. I think his assesment of the situation is far more accurate than any of ours could come close to. Yeah yeah kinda what he said. *pointsup*
This is exactly the attitude I was referring to in my first post in this thread. We have a tendency, at least in North America, to go absolutely haywire and start jumping to all the terrible things that MIGHT have happened. The truth is, air traffic controllers DO have high pressure jobs with little margin for error; the job is inherently dangerous, and that's just the way it is. When you were a kid and you had to fly somewhere with your parents, did the stewardess ever take you up to the cockpit so that you could meet the pilots and look at the controls and see what was going on? I did. I used to fly with my grandfather when I was ten or eleven (he owned a plane), and he'd not only allow me to fly it but he would expect me to know what I was doing the second or third time around. Why, as a society, do we have to get on soapboxes about this kind of thing? Why do we have to look at some small act, like a father bringing his kid into work with him at his [dangerous and technically demanding job], allowing them to sit in his chair and say a few words, and turn it into a media frenzy where the guy is fired and the tapes are broadcast on CNN and everybody on the internet blows up with exclamations about what MIGHT have happened? Put it this way: I travel so much it's insane. I've been on almost every continent. If you told me when I was in the air that one of the ATC on the ground had their kid with them and he was observing flight operations and occassionally his dad let him speak into the microphone, it wouldn't worry me.