Embry Riddle hit by tornado, significant damage..

[kf4amu]

Its the principle of the thing. The tower (supposedly) had no idea a tornado had touched down 20 minutes before Comair landed at 2:09. No way did the storm system move enough to take the tornado conditions with it to make controllers comfortable with a 50 seat jet landing.

Tornado warnings for counties are very unclear when it comes to aviation. A tornado warning in Deland could still mean the tornadic conditions exist 30 miles from the Daytona airport, even though its in the same county. It may or may not tell you something about the Daytona airport...you just don't know.

 

[JediNein]

Its the principle of the thing. The tower (supposedly) had no idea a tornado had touched down 20 minutes before Comair landed at 2:09. No way did the storm system move enough to take the tornado conditions with it to make controllers comfortable with a 50 seat jet landing.

Gee, you look down to take a swig of coffee and look back up to see half of Riddle's fleet on the runway in pieces. In the meantime the sky is a particular shade of green, it's hailing to beat hell, lightning is everywhere, a sound like a locomotive has gone by, and the 'Pilot Weather Stone' is gone. I can understand the tower guys not being able to hear the warning sirens, but come on, one doesn't need a radio to know a tornado is coming. Many times the guys on the radios don't know a tornado is coming and don't get the warnings out.

DAB just needs some controllers from the mid-west or, they should have to take a summer stint in MCI. When the Mid-Westerner controllers head for the basement, it's time for you to follow and try to keep up. Easy.

As far as storms moving, I've watched storm cells exceed 72 knots, spewing tornados, hail, cows, mobile homes, barn doors, and anything else in their path. +TSRA +FC, Mother Nature's way of saying 'up yours'.

Fly SAFE!
Jedi Nein

 

[deadstick]

NATCA has something to say about this...

As a spin on Jedi's idea for a controller's practical experience (bringing them in from tornado alley), what do folks think about a new CFII with about 200TT logged south of 31.0N starting a new job as a CFII in December in the Northeast. They may be well-versed in the 5 o'clock t-storms, but what about icing?

No bait here, just a question.


Press Releases

FAA BAN ON WEATHER COMMUNICATIONS EQUIPMENT AND RADIOS COMPROMISES SAFETY OF ITS EMPLOYEES AND THE FLYING PUBLIC

12/28/2006


.....

 

[deadstick]

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The Federal Aviation Administration’s September decision to ban weather radios, commercial radios and cell phones from its air traffic control facilities placed air traffic controllers in extreme danger in the control tower cab and radar room at Daytona Beach International Airport when Monday’s tornado roared within 150 yards of the facility – with no warning given to the six controllers on duty – before carving a destructive path through Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. This marks the third such incident in three months at an FAA facility that, until recently, had access to the very latest severe weather warnings, as should be the case involving air traffic safety.

Ironically, just last week, FAA officials briefed Daytona Beach controllers on a security order detailing what to do during hazardous weather conditions. One of the requirements listed was, “Keep a watch on the skies and watch/listen to local weather." The order also states that the responsibility to evacuate the tower rests with the manager/supervisor on duty. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association believes the FAA, in disobeying its own orders for monitoring local weather conditions by banning all methods in which to do so, constitutes negligence on the part of the agency.

“This is a situation that defies all measure of common sense and responsibility,” said NATCA Executive Vice President Paul Rinaldi. “The FAA removed the radios as part of its imposed work rules in an effort to punish controllers. But it’s turning out to be a fateful decision that has serious, life or death consequences that clearly the agency foolishly overlooked. We call upon the FAA to immediately put back all radios and life-saving communications equipment.”

Without any way to hear about the tornado warning that was issued for the area, two controllers remained at their posts in the tower cab. They reported poor visibility due to the heavy rain and said they noticed the large, thick windows surrounding them start to move eerily in and out. They said the building shuddered a bit and they heard a low, moaning sound.

At the time, the tower controllers were vectoring a Comair regional jet (Delta Connection) to the airport but, without any knowledge of the tornado embedded in the severe weather, could not warn the pilots. Ordinarily, the aircraft would have been directed to the airport by the associated approach control. However, commercial power had failed about 20 minutes before the aircraft’s arrival, and the uninterruptible power source in the approach control had also failed just moments before the tornado struck the airport, silencing their radios and plunging the radar room into darkness. The pilots realized they had lost contact with the radar controllers, and had the presence of mind to attempt to call the tower, which still had power. The tower then took over the approach functions for their arrival.

The Comair jet was initially approaching a runway that would have placed it head-on into the tornado's path, but the severe weather moved onto the airport too quickly for it to land ahead of the storm front. Instead, it was redirected to the opposite runway to land behind the frontal passage. The airplane landed safely approximately two minutes after the tornado had passed, but the pilots noticed the damage to Embry Riddle from the runway and asked the controllers on the radio frequency about what had happened. Controllers also could not warn a second approaching aircraft, a single-engine Cessna, but the aircraft was re-directed to an airport south of Daytona Beach upon encountering low visibility.

“Without access to critical severe weather information, the FAA is not only showing a blatant disregard for its employees but also for the flying public,” said Kelly Raulerson, NATCA’s Daytona Beach facility representative. “Before this ban went into effect, we used to hear frequent tests of the Emergency Broadcast System on the radio in the tower that we kept on. We certainly needed to hear that familiar alert on Monday. Instead, we were cut off from the world and left in a very vulnerable position.”

In September, a severe weather system spawned tornadoes near both DuPage Air Traffic Control Tower in Illinois and Lincoln Air Traffic Control Tower in Nebraska. With FAA management having just days earlier removed radios from all towers under the imposed work rules, neither facility’s controllers knew of the impending danger nearby. At Lincoln, two controllers were on duty with no supervisors at a late hour in the day. Tornado sirens sounded, an event that, according to controllers’ own orders, mandates the use of weather radios, radios and televisions to monitor the weather. But there was nothing in the tower to use.

At DuPage, a tornado came within two miles of the tower. But controllers had no way of seeing it because heavy rains reduced visibility to a quarter of a mile. The next day, the controllers notified the FAA supervisor on duty and stated that the radio that was in the tower, which management took away, would have alerted the staff sooner. The supervisor replied, "You should have looked out the window."

Rinaldi’s call for the FAA to put back the radios into the facilities comes as the National Weather Service, in published reports, says Floridians should expect more severe storms this winter because El Nino is causing a stronger jet stream.

 

[TrafficInSight]

Does anyone have an inside view of the FAA's policies? Some of the things they're doing to the controllers these days seem ridiculously petty. I have to wonder what the reasoning is.

 

[Rizzo]

The article is correct. New work rules were imposed on the controllers on Sept. 3rd. ALL radios and cell phones were removed from the control room/tower. The controllers in DAB had no idea there was a tornado warning.

Here are some other new "rules":

1. Must be dressed in business casual....no jeans, sneakers, or sweatshirts.
2. Vacation time can be cancelled with zero notice and you can be reassigned to any shift.
3. Your hours for any given day can be changed with no notice...how are you supposed to have a life?
4. When in classroom/sim training you no longer receive a paid lunch so your day is 8.5 hours instead of 8.
5. No food in the control room/tower.

They also have this rediculous idea about productivity. Almost every position is now staffed by 2 people. So sometimes there are only 1 or 2 aircraft with 2 people watching them. They think this makes you more productive since more people are "on position". However, the opposite is true since you are working less aircraft per person.

 

[Rizzo]

DAYTONA BEACH -- A Comair passenger jet about to land at Daytona Beach International Airport was on a collision course Monday with a tornado that air-traffic controllers knew nothing about.

Aviation officials failed to warn the controllers about the Christmas Day twister that could not be detected on the type of weather radar used at the airport, the Federal Aviation Administration acknowledged Thursday.

Making matters worse, the controllers' union says, a recent policy change banned radios from the tower that could have received an alert sent 20 minutes before the tornado touched down.

The tornado's 120-mph winds smashed hangars and 50 parked planes at the airport, and caused $30 million worth of damage in Daytona Beach. The Comair jet with 45 passengers and three crew members that left from New York's LaGuardia Airport landed safely about 20 minutes after the funnel touched down.

The weather-radar systems at the Daytona Beach airport, like those at Sanford and many other smaller airports, show only rain levels. A regional weather station in North Florida, one of two the FAA operates in the state, should have relayed the danger to the Daytona controllers, who saw only a fast-moving, heavy rainstorm around them, said Kathleen Bergen, an FAA spokeswoman in Atlanta.

"The controllers in Daytona Beach had no information about tornadoes," Bergen said.

She said Thursday that she did not know why National Weather Service meteorologists who work at the regional station in Hilliard did not notify the controllers, or whether they tried but were unsuccessful.

FAA officials said Orlando International Airport is equipped with technology that can detect wind shear, tornado activity and severe-weather systems.

Daytona alerts 'very vague'

The Daytona Beach airport receives daily, computerized weather alerts from the Hilliard facility, said Kelly Raulerson, an air-traffic-control specialist at DBIA and the facility's union representative. But she characterized them as "very vague" and covering hundreds of miles of airspace rather than a specific, immediate threat.

Raulerson said she doesn't think the control center could have sent the Daytona controllers the information Monday quickly enough. That's why traffic controllers have long relied on radios tuned to stations carrying the Emergency Alert System as a backup.

But Raulerson and other union officials say the controllers were left in the dark on Christmas Day because the FAA banned radios from work areas in control towers. If the six people on duty -- two of whom were in the tower's glass-enclosed cab -- had known of the dangers, they would have diverted the plane to another airport, shut down the tower and evacuated to safety, Raulerson said.

"We have no way of knowing of an emergency radio broadcast," she said. "The agency has put us in harm's way by not having this backup system."

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association is calling for the FAA to allow radios back in the control towers' cabs and radar rooms, where air traffic is monitored, and used Monday's incident as a rallying point.

In September, the FAA banned radios, TVs and cell phones from work areas in towers as part of a policy change in contract negotiations.

FAA: Ban meant for music

Bergen, of the FAA, said the ban was to eliminate distractions from background music and was never intended to prohibit weather radios, which don't play music but simply alert listeners to hazardous conditions.

Contract proposals prepared by the FAA state "since radios and televisions are allowed in designated non-work areas they are NOT allowed in the operating quarters." There's no specific reference to weather radios.

Doug Church, a national spokesman for the union, said local managers removed radios from control towers nationwide, even though they knew they were being used to monitor for weather alerts.

Traffic controllers across the country have since complained about the loss of their radios and say the Christmas Day tornado here wasn't the first time safety was compromised.

The union cited three other instances:

At the Raleigh-Durham, N.C., tower, controllers were unaware of a chemical-plant explosion near the airport that evacuated 70,000 people and left a toxic cloud over the area, which several planes flew near. They learned of the explosion after the fact.

In Hayward, Calif., controllers could not get up-to-the-minute reports on a mild earthquake nearby. They were called afterward by a manager to find out whether everything was OK.

At DuPage Air Traffic Control Tower in Illinois, a tornado came within two miles of the tower, but controllers couldn't see more than a quarter-mile out the window because of heavy rain.

Weather radios put back

On Wednesday, two days after the twister struck, the FAA manager in Daytona placed weather radios in the two rooms used by controllers to direct air traffic.

During Monday's storm, Comair Flight 5580 from New York was 14 miles east of Daytona Beach at 1:40 p.m. when the pilot lost communication with the tower's radar room because power failed at the airport. The pilot was able to speak with two men in the tower's cab, who couldn't see anything outside, Raulerson said.

"It was a total whiteout," Raulerson said of how the controllers described conditions. The two men are prohibited from speaking to the media by the FAA, which allows union representatives to speak on their behalf, she said. The controllers told her the windows seemed to breathe in and out. "The tower never knew what was coming."

They were oblivious to a weather alert sent out by the National Weather Service at 1:25 p.m., warning that a tornado would be near Daytona International Speedway at about 1:35 p.m. The racetrack is adjacent to the airport.

FAA data showed the jet was on course to land at 1:44 p.m., Raulerson said. The tornado struck 150 yards from the tower at 1:45 p.m.

The controllers could see on the radar they had a fast-moving, severe storm near them, so Raulerson said they diverted the plane to the north and had it remain offshore until the weather passed. It landed safely at 2:06 p.m. and taxied past the destruction the tornado left in its wake.

The tower sustained no damage, and no injuries were reported.

 

[unreal]

The article is correct. New work rules were imposed on the controllers on Sept. 3rd. ALL radios and cell phones were removed from the control room/tower. The controllers in DAB had no idea there was a tornado warning.

Here are some other new "rules":

1. Must be dressed in business casual....no jeans, sneakers, or sweatshirts.
2. Vacation time can be cancelled with zero notice and you can be reassigned to any shift.
3. Your hours for any given day can be changed with no notice...how are you supposed to have a life?
4. When in classroom/sim training you no longer receive a paid lunch so your day is 8.5 hours instead of 8.
5. No food in the control room/tower.

They also have this rediculous idea about productivity. Almost every position is now staffed by 2 people. So sometimes there are only 1 or 2 aircraft with 2 people watching them. They think this makes you more productive since more people are "on position". However, the opposite is true since you are working less aircraft per person.

These and the new pay scale are what made me go back to flying after CTI school. I take it you're the same 'rizzo' on atccti?

 

[KeroseneSnorter]

Question........Why have I been receiving requests via various aviation web sites for donations to help ER replace their fleet??!!

Did they forget to pay their insurance bill? Are the students failing to pay the tuition?

Last but not least, if I send a fat donation I assume I can expect a check from them the next time my airplane is damaged in a storm correct?

I hope that this is a scammer trying to get a few bucks out of some poor slob and not something actually endorsed by ER. What was full tuition for an ER cadet last year?

 

[Joe Schmo]

To the delight of many (I'm sure), ERAU Daytona was hit by a possible tornado (yet to be confirmed) today.

I guess it must be delightful to people when their livelhoods are destroyed.