Name: Air Traffic Control, Explained: How Collisions Are Avoided at Atlanta Airport
Uploaded: 2023-04-04T09:30:00Z
Duration: 7 min 5 s
Description: Aircraft close calls have been rising, prompting safety concerns. WSJ goes inside the air traffic control tower at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to see how controllers juggle around 2,100 flights every day. Photo illustration: Nayon Cho

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Aircraft close calls have been rising, prompting safety concerns. WSJ goes inside the air traffic control tower at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to see how controllers juggle around 2,100 flights every day. Photo illustration: Nayon Cho

https://m.wsj.net/video/20230403/eaacc986-3916-41f3-9062-7777dec04ae5/2/hls/manifest-hd-wifi.m3u8

Air Traffic Control, Explained: How Collisions Are Avoided at Atlanta Airport

Controller: Delta 1943, cancel takeoff clearance.

Announcer: So far this year, there have been at least six aircraft close calls that have rattled both aviation officials and travelers.

You off the runway yet?

We're going around.

Controller 1: Line-up-and-wait. Traffic rolling across the runway.

Controller 2: JetBlue 206, go around.

Announcer: Some safety officials say the increase in collision warnings might be explained in part by pilots and air traffic controllers grappling with the rise in postpandemic traffic. Here's the breakdown of one of this year's near collisions, and what the busiest airport in the world does to prevent close calls like it. On February 4th at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, a FedEx plane was clear to land around 6:40 AM local time. It was still mostly dark and visibility was poor due to weather conditions. When the FedEx plane was approximately three miles away, an air traffic controller cleared a Southwest flight to depart that same runway. As the FedEx plane was landing, its pilots noticed the Southwest flight was still on the runway.

Controller: Southwest port, FedEx is on the go.

Announcer: So, the FedEx pilots initiated a go-around and safely landed 12 minutes later. But this could have been a disaster. The Southwest flight had 128 people on board. A FedEx spokeswoman said the company appreciated the efforts from its flight crew to land the Austin flight safely. And in a message to employees, Southwest Chief Executive Bob Jordan commended the Southwest crew and said the airline would fully participate in the investigation. The faa and ntsb are investigating six serious runway incursions that have occurred so far this year. These incidents show how important air traffic control is in keeping planes safe. So, to understand how it works, we went to the world's busiest airport.

Delta 2899, give way to the inbound RJ at five.

Announcer: This is the air traffic control tower at hartsfield jackson atlanta international airport. It's responsible for the airspace approximately five miles out and 4,000 feet above the airport.

If we're really busy and you're working the clear for takeoff runway, you could have 20 airplanes in line that are all on your frequency at once.

Announcer: Drew Buckman has been an air traffic controller for almost 18 years.

Drew: You're looking for those little abnormalities here and there and you can't help it anymore. That's just what you're trained to do here.

Announcer: Air traffic control towers are managed by the faa. Atlanta's tower operates 24/7 due to its high volume, but smaller airports sometimes go uncontrolled when volume is low. Though pilots can still communicate with the terminal radar approach control facility or an air route traffic control center, if needed. Controllers in Atlanta juggle around 2,100 flights a day, so they're only allowed to work in the tower for two hours at a time. There are three main positions that controllers work in Atlanta's tower.

Drew: The local control are the tower controllers that are working airplanes on each individual runway.

Delta 398, tower, runway two-six left full length, line-up-and-wait, traffic is downfield.

Ground controllers are doing what the title suggests and you're working airplanes on the ground.

Delta 2694, Atlanta ground.

And then we do a third position, which is called clearance delivery, and they're the ones who are giving the clearances to the pilots either electronically or by voice.

Announcer: Here's what that process looks like for a plane departing from Atlanta. When an aircraft is ready to taxi, clearance delivery creates a flight progress strip that has key information like the type of aircraft and its departure gate.

Drew: The proposed time is here. It is in Zulu time.

Announcer: Which is the standard time used across the aviation industry.

Drew: Its requested final altitude is gonna be 37,000 feet.

Announcer: All this information helps controllers keep track of where every plane at the airport is going to avoid collisions. Next, clearance delivery slides that strip over to the ground controller who puts the strips in a sequence. This is the order in which planes will line up on the runway.

Once they get the aircraft taxi down and it's in the order they want it to be in, then they'll switch it over to local control.

Announcer: Who will scan the barcode on the flight strip and clear the plane for takeoff. Before controllers can work with real planes in the tower, they spend six to eight weeks training here in the simulator.

Southwest 1042, contact-

Announcer: Where they practice working in all kinds of weather conditions like rain and fog.

Drew: In those foggy situations, when I can't see out the window, this radar here is gonna give me the tools that I need to be able to see what's actually happening outside of the tower.

Announcer: Controllers also use this airborne radar to monitor planes in the air.

Controller: What we look at here, it's telling us which runway they're going to land on, the type of aircraft, the altitude, and the speed of each aircraft as well.

Announcer: This information helps controllers keep aircraft a safe distance apart in the air somewhere between three and eight miles, depending on the weight of the aircraft. In that near collision in Austin, Texas, the two planes ended up approximately 100 feet from each other. According to preliminary data from the National Transportation Safety Board. In all situations, the faa says, "Communication between pilots and air traffic controllers is key."

Announcer: Pilots and air traffic controllers have to be proficient in the use of the International Civil Aviation Organizations' standard phraseology.

Drew: The typical ones are clear for takeoff and clear to land, those are the ones people know. Go-around means cancel your approach clearance. We're going to send you around and you're going to come back and land again.

Controller: Some commands require a specific response from the pilot.

Whenever we tell them to hold short of runway two-six right, I need for them to read that exact phraseology back, which tells me that they understand that that runway is active, and then they cannot cross that runway until they get further clearance.

Announcer: But hearing the correct read back from the pilot isn't always enough. For example, on February 27th, an air traffic controller instructed a pilot to

Controller: Line-up-and-wait. Traffic rolling across the runway.

Controller: And the pilot read back the instructions clearly, but began a takeoff roll instead. Controllers also have a lot of faa guidelines and regulations they need to follow.

And this is it. The 7110.65 is what people like to call our Bible. Controllers like to call it point 65, but this is everything that is required for us in order to do our jobs on a daily basis.

Announcer: In light of the recent close calls, the faa held a safety summit in March,

Are we emphasizing efficiency over safety?

Initial information suggests that more mistakes than usual are happening across the system. On runways, at gates when planes are pushing back, in control towers, and on flight decks.

Announcer: The faa issued a safety alert a week later, calling on airlines to exercise continued vigilance. Joint faa industry groups have stepped up efforts to analyze and counter the trend according to industry documents and officials involved. Officials haven't issued emergency orders or mandated other changes to carrier operations yet, and they don't think there are imminent risks to passengers. But safety experts say they are concerned that potential collision risks could continue to rise. Still, Buckman says controllers are trained to deal with unusual situations, which can happen from time to time.

There's always a plan B, there's always a plan C. You always have to be planning for what's gonna happen next.