Plane with Michelle Obama had to abort landing due to mistake
Apr 19, 2011, 3:24 pm
#1
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Plane with Michelle Obama had to abort landing due to mistake
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/...C7D_story.html
By Ashley Halsey III, Tuesday, April 19, 5:06 PM
A White House plane carrying Michelle Obama came dangerously close to a 200-ton military cargo jet and had to abort its landing at Andrews Air Force Base on Monday as the result of an air traffic controller’s mistake, according to federal officials familiar with the incident....
By Ashley Halsey III, Tuesday, April 19, 5:06 PM
A White House plane carrying Michelle Obama came dangerously close to a 200-ton military cargo jet and had to abort its landing at Andrews Air Force Base on Monday as the result of an air traffic controller’s mistake, according to federal officials familiar with the incident....
Last edited by cblaisd; Apr 19, 2011 at 5:43 pm Reason: Please do not wholesale copy and paste copyrighted material, per the FT TOS
Apr 19, 2011, 5:31 pm
#2
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Not excusing the Potomac TRACON controller mistakes, but I have found the CNN coverage somewhat amusing, in that I'd have expected their national correspondents fly often enough (indeed, I've been on flights with a few of them before) that they've had this happen to them at least once or twice.
Same thing with avoiding the wake turbulence of a flight ahead of them--I can't put a number to how often I've heard planes rerouted or asked to alter speed due to potential for wake turbulence.
Same thing with avoiding the wake turbulence of a flight ahead of them--I can't put a number to how often I've heard planes rerouted or asked to alter speed due to potential for wake turbulence.
Apr 19, 2011, 6:25 pm
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I suspect it's also news because it's being attributed to an air traffic control error (although I'm sure there will be an investigation to determine whether this was indeed the case). And air traffic control issues have been big news for the past few days.
Apr 19, 2011, 10:01 pm
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I doubt that a day passes somewhere in the US without a young woman being arrested for DUI, but if that woman is Paris Hilton it will be the lead story on the news.
Only one of the following has to be of interest for something to be news-worthy:
Who, what, when, where, why or how. In this case, it was "who".
Apr 20, 2011, 8:54 am
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ATC allows First Lady's plane to get too close to C-17
Apr 20, 2011, 9:48 am
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In my opinion, coverage of this is a good example of a media feeding frenzy. Have you seen some of the phraseology used by various media outlets-- "Scare for the First Lady"... "dangerously close"... please.
If it didn't involve the First Lady, it would have been a non-event, and has been on the many many occasions it happens around the country. But since it's in vogue to pile on the FAA right now, it gets front page attention.
If it didn't involve the First Lady, it would have been a non-event, and has been on the many many occasions it happens around the country. But since it's in vogue to pile on the FAA right now, it gets front page attention.
Apr 20, 2011, 10:04 am
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I told my wife this story is getting far too much attention and that this stuff happens all the time. "No it doesn't" she said.
"Remember that flight into DCA 3 years ago, when we had to go around again because of air traffic in front of us?" I asked. "Same thing"
"Remember that flight into DCA 3 years ago, when we had to go around again because of air traffic in front of us?" I asked. "Same thing"
Apr 20, 2011, 10:31 am
#11
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If there was a news story every time a pilot had to do s-turns for spacing, be warned of slow traffic, or do a go around due to wake turbulence, there would be a 24 hour news channel for all the reports. I've probably done all of the above practicing touch and gos on a typical afternoon in busy airspace. ATC error is the hot topic at the moment and the media loves feeding the fear machine.
Apr 20, 2011, 10:42 am
#12
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Yeah, I've wondered if I was missing why this was such a big deal. I used to fly Cessnas and wake turbulence was something we were always aware of. If you felt like you were too close behind a larger aircraft, you just maneuvered in the traffic pattern for a bit until you were safe, or landed past their landing trajectory. It sounds from the story like larger aircraft flying IFR are more rigidly scheduled so as not to run into wake turbulence, and maybe ATC did make a minor error here that the pilot had to question, but the problem was solved without incident. I could also imagine conditions inadvertently causing this -- headwinds, tailwinds, that sort of thing. It happens, pilots know what to do about it.
Apr 20, 2011, 8:22 pm
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Apr 20, 2011, 9:11 pm
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