So lets say an enroute looses sep, what do you 121 guys and gals do?

[Lrjtcaptain]

So, im a swivel headed tower puke but heard from a friend that a certain ARTCC ran a deal, a loss of seperation in which 2 planes came within 4 1/2 miles of eachother at FL200. They eventually got eachother in sight and in all reality, give me a break, the TRACONS move you closer so there was no danger especially with RVSM now days. Anyways, the A.H. pilot had to call the ARTCC and NARC on the controller whos sup's were already notified of the incident. We are talking center controllers who are currently working in facilitys way understaffed, working manditory 6 days. Now this controller was working probably the busiest chunk of enroute airspace in the country. Are you required to call when your in 121 if you see something like this happen? Where is the brotherly love here? Here is how i look at it, pilots make mistakes all the time, controllers do to, we seldomly write anyone up, and seldomly make them dial the dreaded phone number. Here is how I look at it........If we as controllers, have you call and question what happend, we leave it at that, its not like we call your chief pilot and narc you out, so I look forward to your feed back. If there is bad blood between pilots and controllers and out of spite your trying to get controllers in trouble, not all of you just some of you then we can all agree the my supervisor is going to get really good at filling out Pilot deviation forms if you all want to take this to the next level. This pisses me off...and im not talking about all of you, just the many few whom ive heard have done this in the past. We know what we did, you know what we did, and if you want to call and talk about it fine, as for the controller, not the area sups etc....In this situation the sup basically told this pilot to F.Off, he was already notified of the problem and had dealt with it. If there are a certain number of you out to burn us, I think we will win this one! Fly safe and don't F...up!

 

[SCT]

Lrjtcaptain,

As a good review, will you list the seperation guidelines ATC uses in the flight levels and terminal areas for IFR traffic.

Thanks,
SCT

 

[Swass]

A little edgy are we today? Wow.

:angryfire

 

[Corbon]

I don't know of any pilot who would rat out someone like that. Never known anyone who's done it. Especially with TCAS, it seems like there would be no safety issue in this instance. This guy is probably a well known prick who everybody hates, so in turn he has to bust everybody who makes a mistake. At the same time he wonders why no one likes flying with him.
I've had controllers make mistakes with me and I've made mistakes, it happens to everyone. Maybe this pilot (captain I'd guess?) is just incompetent and at some point in his past he's screwed the pooch bigtime and got busted by a controller who had no other choice and is now has a personal vendetta. Whatever it is, I assure you it is very isolated and most of us have nothing but respect for ATC so tell the sups to just keep those deviation forms in the drawer unless one of us really deserves it.

 

[Lrjtcaptain]

Well, i agree, are you required to report it as a 121 pilot? I don't know your rules at all, 135 and 91 I know.....but comon...Im required to fill out a PD everytime I see a pilot bust a rule...I look at it like this, Im not a cop, I seperate airplanes. I don't fill out any pd's....Now in turn I expect you to do your job, follow the rules and let me do my job. But ive heard time and time again of this, pilot calls and can't talk to the controller.....no no, he has to talk to the supervisor...Okay fine, you start doing that, I start calling chief pilots instead of you calling me. Seperation guidlines in a nutshell for the enroute guys...........5 miles and 1,000ft, used to be 2,000ft above 290 but not any longer with RVSM. Now a tracon, they have short range radar, sweeps are fast...Enroutes longrange delays are 8 to 12 secs as for the 5 miles as opposed to 3 for tracons. Thats my point, with RVSM, clear WX and 4.5 miles here, there was no danger....but this pilot, eager to be a prick called the supervisor. Thats my point, Ive heard of this happening more and more. So if this is the way its going I have no problem being a D... right back. I don't want to be, but it looks as though there has been alot of animosity. You do your job, ill do mine, and the worst thing that can happen is a phone call to me.......However, if this starts happening more and more, bad blood arises, and things get ugly. I hold grudges for 48hours. Pilots are on my list for another 47. Fly safe

 

[EagleRJ]

Are you sure the pilot asked to speak with a supervisor? If a pilot calls a facility to complain about something. He's probably not going to be able to ask for "whoever was working ABC3 arrivals over DEF at 1530Z". The sup is usually the one who answers the phone.

I've only called to talk to someone once. There was no loss of seperation- just some extraordinarily bad judgement by the Local controller. I had to talk to the sup, since Local was busy. I'm still not going to go out of my way to make trouble for a particular controller, since I suspect he can easily make more trouble for me. I'll bet most pilots are the same.

Most 121 carriers are participants in the ASAP program, which expands on the NASA form to catalog and correct operational issues before they become systemic problems. In the event of a PD, filing an ASAP report is a smart idea, but it does you no good if you're just angry about something that happened with ATC. Normally in the case of a serious "deal" on the controller's behalf, enough other people will see it that it will be hard to brush off.

 

[millhouse21]

Not required to rat on ATC as a part 121 pilot.

 

[avbug]

From a pilot's perspective, how would I know, and why would I care that you didn't meet your book-value separation? I wouldn't. How the other crew found out, I have no idea...but in RVSM I see aircraft come by with 1,000 separation and a whole lot less than five miles all the time. I don't care. I see aircraft at my altitude and I have no idea if they're 4.5 or 5 miles, nor do I care.

Any pilot that would make an issue of 4.5 miles instead of 5 needs to be stripped naked, varnished, and set out to sea. He doesn't belong in an aircraft cockpit. What a dingbat.

When I do call a control facility, if a particular controller isn't available, I'll ask to talk to a supervisor. I'm not going to wait on the line all day. I seldom call a control facility, and when I do, it's not to complain about a controller. I can think of only once recently when that became necessary, and I didn't have the time to actually make the call. It was really tempting, however, because the controller was pushing it. I very nearly got on Ground after clearing, and told them to standby to copy my cell number...

It would have been worth it just for their reaction, but I really was ticked.

 

[FracCapt]

I've called an ARTCC twice to speak with the controller about certain issues(neither of which were his fault), but was not allowed to speak to the controller. I was only allowed to speak with the supervisor.

One such incident caused a loss of separation while we were IFR, headed into JFK. We were at 15,000, IMC, and had VFR traffic called out at 15,500 descending on a converging course, 7 miles away. We were solid IMC, and reported such. Our TCAS was MEL'd, so we didn't know where the guy was. I immediately requested a turn, he gave us one, but the offending aircraft matched the turn(presumably watching us on TCAS, trying to avoid us, not realizing we were turning). ATC said the VFR traffic was at 15,200 and descending, so I began an immediate and rapid climb when he was about 3 miles away. At about 15,100, we broke out on top and saw a turboprop skimming the tops and just popping into the clouds during descent. We were less than 1500ft horizontally, at nearly the same altitude, and he was passing right to left.

When I called to speak with the controller, the supervisor would not allow me to. I wanted to thank him for his quick actions, because otherwise it would likely have resulted in a midair while IMC. I also wanted to tell them what aircraft it was(because there were only 2 prototypes in existence at that time), because I was pissed that some idiot was out flying IMC while squawking VFR just west of NYC airspace. The supervisor even asked me if I wanted to file a complaint against the controller for loss of separation. :angryfire Of course, I didn't...it wasn't his fault that this idiot was out tooling around where he shouldn't be.

 

[Green Banana]

Don't get wraped around the axl on this one. 98% of the guys out there would land and go stright to the hotel and not think about it again. There are a few dildo's out there, don't let them ruin your day. As for 121, I am required to fill out a one page fill in the blanks form if I get a "RA". That is a "PULL UP" "CLIMB" or anything like that where the aircraft is trying to keep me from diying. If I get a "TRAFFIC" TA, no sweat. I get that about 4-5 times a flight.

Thanks for keepin us outa each others way!!!!!!