ANNOYING Type of Air Traffic Controller | ATC vs Pilots

The ATC controller for the Miracle on the Hudson flight was named Patrick Harten. He deserves more recognition.

she's the type of controller to tell you to be sure to not hit anything when you crash

Since you tend to be tougher on the pilots as a pilot, I'm gonna be harder on ATC because I'm a controller... The controller talking to 9UP Should hang up her headset. That's just embarrassing as a controller. As Kelsey Pretty much stated and I will add...a good controller would have given the pertinent weather instead of Is asking the pilot to verify he had the information. That's adding stress to an already very stressful situation. The pilot literally said he had his hands full. With all that being said I would take the loss of my ratings over a loss of human life any day... "AO"

The first time as a 200 hour PPL that I landed at a major international airport, all went pretty well until after I had landed, and I was feeling pretty proud of myself as I swiftly vacated the runway at the first exit and switched to ground frequency as requested. Job done! Nope. The fast barrage of complex taxi instructions might as well have been spoken in Greek. Totally overwhelmed, I weakly replied, "Erm, request progressives ... please?" The controller came back with a chuckle - "Just wait there little fella, I'll send a followme vehicle ..." Profound relief!

I am not a pilot. I know nothing about being a pilot, but, man, you explain things very clearly and in a way that anyone can understand. thank you

In South Africa we generally use "Trainer 1" as our callsign in the simulator. One day out of Johannesburg an aircraft had a bird strike and the pilot came on the radio "Mayday mayday mayday Trainer 1 bird strike... " instead of using his actual callsign, the ATC just went with it and used "Trainer 1" as his callsign while they returned to the airport. The ATC was accommodating, knowing that the pilot was comfortable with the callsign and just continuing with it.

I’m an MEII and I had a student that wanted to fly somewhere for his lesson. We decided to fly from Tulsa to Lake Charles Louisiana. Hours before the lesson he asked if his Mother and Sister could go. He informed me that they were apprehensive about small planes. We were to take a Cessna 310, so I said okay, because being the ambassador for aviation that I am. The C310 was being flown by another CFI while I pre-flighted. Upon landing, he grounded the 310. I called the owner and he advised I could take his Piper Aztec for the day. The women definitely voiced apprehension and I could tell me student was playing ambassador too, however their vocalizing was coming off more as nervous chatter than serious fear. We loaded up and I talked the ladies through each task I would be putting my student through, so they would have some expectations and be less nervous. Sister really relaxed, but Mom, not so much. I isolated the headsets and addressed the situation with my student and he reassured me that was normal melodrama for Mom. I decided there may be some impending air sickness with mom, so I got more into IFR navigation / multi engine work to keep the motion part to a minimum. It was a beautiful day with many small vertical clouds and we had filed IFR so we quit dodging clouds and started popping in an out of them, however this started to get bumpy for Mom and again I sensed an impending air sickness incident. Just about then a loud chunk was heard and within 4 revolutions the critical engine just stopped frozen. I put my student through his paces and he was at best doing a C- job of handling it, but he wasn’t F-ing the situation so I let him continue. Sister kinda knew it was real, but Mom thought it was still all training. We declared an emergency and asked for vectors to the nearest. To my surprise, I was soon getting vectors to and talking with a Barksdle AFB controller. I reassured the controller that although it was a training flight, we had numerous options and we were maintaining altitude with an ever so slight decent rate, so if he would rather we not AFB it, I was okay with that for now. He was THE BEST controller I’ve ever dealt with—period, and on top of that he sounded quite young. I lamented to him that although this was taxing my student and I knew we’d be okay, I still wanted to take this lesson up a notch or two in order to not waste the real world experience we were having. I let the student do all the talking to the controller from then on—but— when he repeated the declaration of emergency (done to fully start the lesson from the top), that’s when it hit Mom that this was really happening. My student was just starting to come down off the initial shock of what was happening, when Mom went full-on freak-out. I tried to reassure her, Sis tried to, and my student kinda barked at her to stop. Well, she started whooping, streaking, and grabbing. It got really bad really quick. I then declared to the controller that I was now having a real emergency. The controller could hear her freak out during my call. My student started to get too distracted by Mom’s antics and he was looking for me to take over. I put my left hand on his right hand on the throttles and gave him a stern, yet reassuring look and said, “Aviate, Navigate, Communicate—now fly this plane and deal with the problem.” Although Mom never backed down a notch and hyperventilated on short final, it was like my student just tuned her out and latched on to the controller’s voice. As we saw Barksdale in the distance ( that’s one big, wide runway) I commented to the controller, that “everything is going good and we’re having a great learning experience up here”, to which the controller responded, “we all could use some real world, from time to time.” I knew he was still picking up Mom’s antics from the back. Although we were still IFR but again now below the clouds in beautiful VFR conditions, I pulled out my foggles, handed them to my student and instructed him to request an ASR approach. The controller gladly accepted, but I could tell he had to think about it for a second or two. As my student did some B+ flying and the controller spit out the turns, I could really get the sense that both my student & the controller were really into that approach. Mom never stopped even as we were rolling out. After learning we’d absolutely chunked a distributor, I requested to meet the controller. He told me he’d never gotten the opportunity to do a real ASR approach and certainly never expected to do one on an airplane moving “so slow”! I’ll always remember that day fondly. He really was a great tempered, super professional Controller. Mom, well, we had to spend the night awaiting repairs, so Sister rented a car and all three drove back. I flew home myself the next day. A Controller’s temperament, professionalism, and assistance can make ALL the difference, as he helped me take not one, but three issues (engine out, student, and Mom’s freak out) and keep it all in the realm of a great learning experience.

ATC, Patrick Harden, who Assisted the Crew of Flight Cactus 1549 definitely also deserves mad props for everything he did during that time. I believe he can also be attributed with the swift assistance at the landing site this crew received in evacuating the passengers to safety. He is a significant part of the reason their was no loss of life along with the flight crew and flight attendants in the back.

“The passengers are going to be pretty upset” understatement of the year xD

Sully: Unable, we're gonna be in the Hudson. ATC: Confirm you're responsible for obstacle clearance 😂

509UP is one of my company's aircraft. The PIC did a great job, despite the controller being awful, and he wasn't flying alone. We don't do that. Always two type-rated pilots in the cockpit. Besides that, the Citation (either the X pictured, or the XLS actually involved) isn't certified for single pilot operations. By the way, they weren't just dealing with an open door/airstair, but also with the loss of an engine. When the door flew open, a jacket flew out and went straight into the #1 engine. We do have terrain avoidance software on the airplanes, but we aren't supposed to use it as a primary means of avoiding the terrain. However, if it's all you got, you can point the aircraft toward the green returns, avoid the yellow, and the red will kill you. It shows the highest terrain elevation within the area you have displayed also. The controller is worried about minimum vectoring altitude, which gives a minimum of 1000 feet above the highest obstacle in the area, and only the controller knows it, but in a situation like this one, you shouldn't really care about having 1000 feet of clearance--just having enough to not hit anything! The only thing I might critique the pilot on is not having a plan for an emergency return ready to go. When I was in the Air Force, on an IFR flight (even if the weather was good), we were required to take off with the applicable emergency return instrument approach briefed and loaded, and tuned in (if the aircraft's systems allowed that). When I flew a jet that only had one VHF navigation receiver, I would have the navaid frequency needed for departure tuned in, and the one for the emergency return IAP set in the standby freq. These days I don't bother with a lot of setup if the weather is good and terrain isn't an issue, but when those things are a factor, I will at least have the applicable instrument approach loaded on the iPad, and the LOC freq for the emergency return tuned in. We are required to brief our plan for an emergency return, but it's important to also be ready to execute that plan. We all have the SDP loaded and ready to go when we're departing a mountainous airport that has one, just in case we lose an engine, but a lot of people are a bit complaceent when it comes to other airports. Also, not to be too nit-picky, but why are you showing a Citation X during that episode? There are plenty of good Citation XLS pictures to use. 😎

EXCELLENT vid. I've never been a 747 pilot, but I HAVE been an Air Traffic Controller (1974 to 2008), and I have handled emergencies (many), and I just wanted to tell you that you were absolutely CORRECT about that controller working the EMER biz jet. I cringed listening to her! If she'd have demonstrated that attitude as a trainee of mine, I would have done all I could to get her OUT of the profession. Unfortunately, persons with such attitudes rarely "reveal" themselves until after check-out.

I’m a controller and you explained everything very well. I cringed pretty hard at the second controller really not helping at all…

This woman would have requested Sully to check the tide and water temperature in the Hudson.

"I understand he's loading her up with a ton of information that she's not used to...I get it - but he's also not used to having a DOOR FLY OFF his plane either! Give him some slack" I lol'd at this amazing statement!

ATC (Patrick) should have been recognized at least equally as Sully. That dude was on top of everything. On a 1 to 10 scale, this ATC gets a 27. As good as the landing! Awesome Patrick!!

Literally had no interest in airlines, pilots, ATC anything like that yesterday. At work today and stumbled upon this treasure of a man. Now I can’t stop watching

During my air traffic controller training, we looked at the Hudson case and the actions of the responsible controller as a positive example. He did an amazing job, giving Sully all available options while keeping his transmissions short and causing as little distraction to the pilots as possible. If I ever become a part of an emergency situation as severe as this, I really hope I will perform like that controller did.

My boss is a retired regional ATC. He said that once, he got a call from a small private plane who declared an emergency, needing to land immediately. As luck would have it they were near a small uncontrolled rural airfield. My boss grew up in this same area and was able to sucessfully direct them to the airfield using landmarks, at night. I was impressed.

The idea that liability could even matter in life or death situation just boggles my mind. I remember learning in a first responder class that one of the top reasons people chose not to do CPR is fear of being sued/ liability, I was dumbfounded.