Flyover Country

I live less than 2 miles from KTZR (Bolton Field). The noise has never really bothered me. Yet today as I hear the planes in the pattern, I hear the sound of freedom.

For a few days after 9/11/2001, the skies were eerily silent.  The entire United States airspace was closed to all non-military traffic.  All aircraft are stopped on the ground.  No aircraft were allowed to enter United States airspace, and all airborne aircraft that morning were to land as soon as practical – aviation speak for “immediately”.

Since we started flying rickety machines in 1903, a nationwide ATC ZERO condition had never happened, and no one had planned for such an event.  There was no manual, no procedure for landing every single airborne plane in every sector.  But on 9/11/2001, thanks to brave, smart ATC controllers more than 4,200 aircraft at the time ATC ZERO was declared safely landed.  It was individual controllers, individual tower supervisors who made decisions that had to be made and brought so many aircraft safely back to earth.

Thank you to the controllers in the towers, the centers, the TRACONs, and all the other facilities that keep our skies safe.  You guys are forgotten heroes of September 11.

Update: @Avtips provided links to several NTSB reports for 9/11, including ATC transcripts.

Came across an article today about a cell tower built too high near the end of a runway.  This is a big deal, especially when the obstruction isn’t lit.  Radio towers might seem unsightly from the ground, but they’re fairly small in terms of being able to see them from the air.  Even moreso at night.  The tower in question was built too high, so the light installed was activated so that pilots wouldn’t run into the damn thing and kill themselves trying to land.  Apparently there are some real idiots who want the cell service, but don’t understand what it means to have an obstruction that cannot be seen.

The FAA offered an alternative – paint the tower orange and white.

The FAA would prefer a flashing white strobe during the day and red beacon at night, but a possible alternative would be to paint the tower bright orange and white in 8-foot stripes from top to bottom, Papenfuss said. He asked the FAA to wait on its recommendation until town planners state their preference. His preference was clear: “You don’t want that god-awful orange and white paint you see for miles.”

Actually, dumbass, yes you do.  An airplane traveling at 200mph covers 2 miles in about 30 seconds.  That isn’t much time to see the obstruction while busy preparing to land, and avoid it.  Apparently some residents objected to the tower being lit, and after just a day or so complained, referring to it as a “tower of terror” – because of the light.

The article then takes a very SimCity like turn, with these gems:

“I’m totally confused. … I’m moving.”

“It really smells as far as I’m concerned”

the light is “pretty bad. You could get sunburn from it.”

“My house is lit up like a disco. I am inflicted with ocular migraines. … You need to drop their cell tower to where there’s no light, or tear it down.”

This is the type of nonsense you get from an uninformed citizenry crying NIMBY!

Dear Mr. President:

Please stay the hell away from Columbus. Especially when we’re trying to train and prepare for a real disaster. You knew we were running an all-day exercise that hard-working folks have been planning for over a year. You knew your visit would mean sucking away resources from our exercise and leaving us short-handed on first responders. You gave us barely two days notice (based on the publication of the initial TFR), and wanted us to cancel our plans – for you.

I don’t think you give a sh*t. We’re just flyover country. We’re mostly just typical white people who cling to our God and our guns, and what we’re doing doesn’t really matter. You’re the king, and if you want to come to give a 10 minute speech on the one day we need you to not be here screwing things up, we’ll just have to suffer. You have no respect for the American people, let alone the good citizens of Columbus.

How many of our first responders were not able to participate because you had to come to town? They had to line your parade route to make sure they were available if anything happened to YOU. It is always about YOU. How many of our firefighters and police missed out on valuable, irreplaceable training? How much less prepared are we now, and how much benefit in emergency services have the tax payers of central Ohio lost because of you?

Let me be clear Mr. President. This wasn’t some little mom-and-pop operation in a rural firehouse in the sticks. We’re a major city, and this involved the entire Columbus metro area, including a major airport, 9 major local hospitals, and more fire-rescue departments than I can count. Two hospitals bailed at the last minute – one because you were going to be in their way. Many agencies were only able to send EMTs. There were only a couple of fire trucks and almost no police. Does that make sense in a major disaster? Of course not. Because I suspect they were all pulled off the exercise to come babysit you for your 58 minutes on the ground here in town.

You couldn’t pick another day on YOUR busy schedule. You just had to fly in, spend 10 whole minutes talking about jobs – while the workers on the site you chose for your theatre had to go home without pay. Your 10 minutes pretty much ruined months and months of careful planning and coordination from multiple agencies, and a whole day for all of the unpaid volunteers. Go back to Washington and stay the hell out of my city.

Sincerely,
Me

Update: Found a CBS article saying the 10 minute speech cost the tax payers somewhere between $500,000 and $1,000,000. Salt in the wound.

I’m always suspicious of people who have things to say to the media, claim to be “aviation [security] experts” and who work(ed) for the TSA.  Employment by the aforementioned agency certainly does not automatically grant “expert” status.

The simple fact is this: Sometimes there’s nothing you can do. Once in a while, lone maniacs decide to kill as many people as they can. All the name checks and technology in the world couldn’t have kept Stack from flying his plane into the IRS building. But perhaps this tragedy will cause the TSA to reconsider its ill-conceived plan to roll back general aviation security. (Boston Herald)

What we’re saying is that nothing would have stopped this guy, but we should use this as an excuse to burden GA with draconian security theatre measures anyway?

The columnist is right.  Very little, if anything could have stopped this maniac.  However, @NYCAviation made a very insightful statement

Hey Joe Stack! Having money problems? $10k money hole? MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE SOLD YOUR 6-FIGURE AIRPLANE!

Stack smashed the Piper he owned into a building in downtown Austin, killing himself and one other who was in the building at the time.  The 90 second ATC tape (Stack is identified as “Dakota” or “8-9-Delta”) is completely routine chatter.  Chilling in retrospect, but no clues that I or the controller on duty could discern as to what Stack was about to do.

In my best impression of how I imagine John Stossel might sum it up: Before we give the TSA more of our tax dollars, more authority over GA, allow them to impose more nonsense on the aviation community and the public at large, they should explain.  Because so-called TSA security “experts” are citing this situation for an expansion of TSA powers, they have the burden to make the case in great detail how having all of these added tools and resources at our expense, financial and otherwise, would have stopped this attack.  The reality is that it would not have.