Tin Pusher Part Two

Tin Pusher Part Two (of Three)

It’s 1987…how long was I in FAA remission? Only a year and a half. Was I nuts to be walking back into a Washington D.C. area tower and embracing once again the art of moving metal? I think in a way we are all a little nuts. It takes a certain personality and strength to voluntarily put yourself in the constant center of chaos and stress day in and day out. It’s like a roller coaster ride that scares you and yet thrills you and you can’t get off. We have a rhetorical question, “Which comes first, the crazy people who want this job, or the job that makes the people crazy?”

It’s 1990 and I am training on my very last position. It has been three hard years and for some even four. It does not go missed that we could have completed medical or law school in this amount of time. I am expecting my second child and thankfully still have a trainer plugged in with me; Because more times than I can count, I must suddenly unplug and run into the nearby men’s room to say goodbye to the hasty out -the -door breakfast that I choked down while the normal world was still asleep.

The smiling face of a sympathetic supervisor always guards the door understanding that the lady’s room was a daunting flight of stairs away.

Mouth rinsed, I return, plug in, and carry on. Sometimes watching the green sweep go ‘round the scope I would worry about radiation and pregnancy. But assured by the FAA that there were no documented problems, I continue. It would be years later when I would realize my fortune at having such a healthy baby when we controllers calculated that over 50% of the babies born to that facility in recent years had some sort of a birth defect or health problems. No one will ever know why.

Eight months pregnant and 45 pounds of water, (that’s my story, never mind the late night Pop Tarts), The Airport Authority and its perfect timing chose to disable the tower elevator for two months of refurbishing. Climbing 12 non-air conditioned July concrete flights did nothing to rid those Pop Tart, I mean water pounds. Of course I never did get a thank you for making the unbearable daily hike to help the understaffed operation but I did once get a nice back room counseling session for being late after a 6th floor stop to catch my pregnant breath.

It’s 1994 and I am asked to return full time from maternity leave to help a floundering trainee with a last chance effort at succeeding on the intense unworkable roller coaster of all rides---Final. I left the baby boy behind and gave the trainee all that I had. My family sacrifice ended in one washed out trainee, an operational error with only 50 feet separation, two weeks of bad dreams, and a spot on The Learning Channel titled, “Understanding Air Traffic Control.”

Fifty (50!!!) feet apart in the middle of the clouds and me holding my breath! When those two targets came apart on the other side I exhaled; I still had 16 more aircraft under my control in a tiny airspace waiting for instructions. I still had work to do and it would be the longest thirty minutes of my life before the short staffing would find another controller to relieve me.

While listening to the tapes and reliving the near disaster, somewhere in the terminal two airline pilots were shaking hands. Having sought each other out after an unexpected meeting in the clouds, they followed up with a call to the facility graciously commending my performance and chastising the FAA for allowing any controller to be put through such an impossible Rubik’s cube of traffic. I took two weeks vacation, sent my family packing, and sat locked inside my home thanks to a record breaking shut- the -city -down ice storm. Seems 8 foot waves and San Diego sunsets are a distant dream now. For days and nights I relived that moment over and over and contemplated and second guessed how I could have prevented it. The nights were sleepless and if I was lucky enough to sleep, it only brought nightmares of the near disaster.

My husband of ten years was by then an Airline veteran who used to truthfully joke that his biggest worry day to day (in the 7 days per month that he flew) was whether to choose the chicken or the fish. He used to say that he did not get paid for what he did every day, that he was paid for what he might have to do in a moment’s notice. A heroic United pilot in Sioux City comes immediately to mind.

You could not pay Captain Al Haynes enough for what he endured that day in Iowa and the FAA does not pay me enough for what I went through that day in Virginia, and what I have heard in my head thousands of times since.

The FAA Administrator who is now holding my career in her hands…I sometimes wonder. She remarks about Hollywood’s Pushing Tin, but has she taken the time to view The Learning Channel’s, Understanding Air Traffic Control? I don’t think she has. You see, the actual audio tape from my close encounter of the worst kind is played out during the one hour documentary. I myself can not watch it without sweaty palms and a lump in my throat.

She's a professional whose former position was to run the National Transportation Safety Board. I would imagine that somewhere along the way she must have tip- toed through a gruesome and heartbreaking scene with a scarf held over her face. Hasn’t she seen first hand the horror of what happens when the targets don’t come out the other side? Could she really stand in a hotel room shower trying to scrub away the acrid smell of disaster and later in speeches minimize the stress and trivialize what I and 14,500 other Air Traffic Controllers do every single day and night?!

Can Ms. Blakey really believe that just anyone can and will do this job? And that it only takes a high school diploma? That is like telling every college drop out that he can become a Bill Gates. Or tell every basketball player cut from Varsity that he will become a Michael Jordan.

About two thirds of my coworkers have military backgrounds and the other third have college degrees. Oh yes, there are the lucky few who manage to succeed with only high school behind them, but the FAA has also spent millions on trainees with no background only to eventually wash them out.

It’s 2001 and I am training a new gal in the tower. Not really a new gal because just before I had danced at the prom to a Beatle’s tune, this lady had been a Washington D.C. controller, but got caught up in the strike of 1981. Now ten years and two presidents later she was rejoining the world of aviation. I am teaching her about a runway rule that is not favored by controllers or pilots but the FAA insists upon it because it reduces delays.

At that moment a pilot has an emergency and my back turned to my trainee, I am coordinating with other personnel regarding the pilot’s situation and the need for fire and rescue equipment. In the blink of an eye, I miss the trainee’s incomplete landing clearance to a different aircraft. Attention now on her and the approaching aircraft, I recognize her omission and have her take action to correct it. All seems well and the aircraft are separated and land safely. However a jump seat rider takes issue with the trainee’s handling of the initial instruction and the situation snowballs. It is just the sort of thing that the bureaucrats are looking for to kill the procedure, and I am about to become the sacrificial lamb.

Days later I am called to a formal conference; sort of a hearing outside of a courtroom. I am greeted outside the ominous doors by an attorney from the U.S. Justice Department. He hands me his fancy card and assures me that he is there to represent me in the inquest.

The party inside that awaits me besides my new best friend from the Justice Department consists of FAA Headquarters, the NTSB, ALPA, NATCA, and local personnel. Everyone has their own agenda. In the end me---and the ever unpopular “Land and hold short“procedure ---are beheaded.

I didn’t suffer water droplets or bamboo shoots during the interrogation but being party to an official lynching wasn’t worth the Chai Tea Latte that my trainee sheepishly handed me afterwards.

I hear now that the FAA would like to do away with the measly ten percent training pay incentive; I’d rather teach my teen to drive again than train new controllers resulting in near mid airs, NTSB inquisitions, or lawyers from the Justice Department. Ten percent is a joke….if it was all about the money this measly pittance wouldn’t be enough!

It’s a beautiful Tuesday morning in September, 2001; as I clear planes for takeoffs and landings at Dulles International, I turn around to watch confusing scenes on the television of a World Trade Center building on fire. The TV is normally restricted to weather information in the tower but this morning we cannot wait until our breaks downstairs to hear more on the mind boggling event. Everyone is surmising about a lost private pilot. How many of these have we worked through the years?

Coming tomorrow....The final installment of "Tin Pusher.........."