Newsstand - places in holding pattern while lone controller goes to the little boy's room

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/11/tower.break/index.html

Two airliners had to circle for 18 minutes and a plane ferrying human lungs for transplant was briefly delayed Friday while an airport's lone air traffic controller took a bathroom break, the controller's union said.

...

Because the only other employee in the tower was not certified to handle takeoffs and landings, the controller notified FAA's Boston consolidated terminal radar approach control, or TRACON, that he was taking the unscheduled break.

FAA spokesman Jim Peters said the controller, who had handled 60 aircraft during the first three hours of his shift, acted responsibly by waiting until a slow period before taking his bathroom break. Boston TRACON assumed responsibility for the airspace and placed two aircraft in a holding pattern until the controller returned.


damn it i am dyslexic today. can a mod fix the title even though its (somewhat) obvious what the error is?

When you gotta go, you gotta go :D

When you gotta go, you gotta go :D

If I ever have to go that bad, it never takes 18 minutes.

If I ever have to go that bad, it never takes 18 minutes.

Are you in the Union? :D

He couldn't go on holding, so they had to...

He is human, after all. Sh!t happens :o

What's all the fuss? Guess it's just the b*st*rds of the media, having become 100% tabloid, turning something banal but lurid into drama -- because they can. Of course, the numbers are all over the place, depending on whom you talk to -- was it 10 minutes, 12 minutes or 18 minutes? Whatever it was, so what!

One of my college internships was with a police department dispatch. As a small agency, they almost always had one person operating the phones and radio. There was a small bathroom in the dispatch center with a radio microphone in it, as well as a much less complex phone console.

But...the dispatcher could answer calls and dispatch from inside the loo...

If I ever have to go that bad, it never takes 18 minutes.sunday paper? ;)

One of my college internships was with a police department dispatch. As a small agency, they almost always had one person operating the phones and radio. There was a small bathroom in the dispatch center with a radio microphone in it, as well as a much less complex phone console.would be interesting to see a radar screen in the bathroom of a control tower

From what I understand (which is usually not much) the break took 12 minutes. The 18 minutes included the time the planes had to be put back in the landing patteren. So, I guess it just depends on your point of view.

I'm not sure where the bathrooms are in this tower, but it's a seven-story elevator ride and then a two-floor climb up stairs to get to the cab. So if the bathroom was at the bottom of the tower, which they often are, you do need to figure in a fair amount of travel time to the lav. (He was gone 12 mins.) Let's just hope the FAA doesn't decide to borrow any ideas from NASA ...