Medevac
- Thread starter Bernoulli Fan
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ATC Jesus
Savior to the Medivacs
Nah...I don't work busy airspace at all. In the latest chapter of "Saving Lives: One Medivac at a Time", our very own DvLzArchAngL first thing this morning asked a medevac if he wanted further direct routing. The pilot noted he wanted direct as possible, so DvLzArchAngL obliged, sending the medevac direct VNY, the 2nd busiest general aviation airport in the world. We drove the traffic directly through the opposing LAX departure flow (morning rush, no doubt), the 3rd busiest airport in the world, through the Las Vegas arrival flow, and right on through the BUR, SMO, WHP, departures and arrivals, straight to the busiest approach control facility in the world. But it's obvious we don't work busy airspace.
And guess what? It all worked out! The moon, the stars, and the planets aligned this morning, and we had a series of controllers who actually gave a damn, from the sectors who took a pointout on the aircraft (and moved their planes to accommodate), to the controllers who worked the aircraft. We all put our breakfast down momentarily, remembered how much money we make every minute, and made it happen, so that the person on board, the person in the hospital bed, or the organs on board could get the appropriate treatment that much faster. Departures were stopped, arrivals were vectored, overflights were vectored, and the medevac had a straight shot for the airport.
I don't want to hear how busy people think they are, or how much coordination it takes to make it happen. No more excuses. Step up and do the job you're paid very well to do, or retire and let someone who cares take your place.
desertdog71
Girthy Member
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Ozelot
Frozen Tundra TRACON
We need more of this attitude. We have a large number of...."experienced" controllers that think they are already retired. Their work ethic and attitude is straight up unacceptable.
z987k
Well-Known Member
And the horse cannon!
GolfChuck
Trustworthy Source
Good for you, I am not going to be so presumptuous to think that I know your airspace better than you do. However, do you think those same downstream controllers would have been just as eager to take that flight had it been direct from somewhere in the san diego area? Or if your medevac had been going to TOA or LGB? If I go direct to TEB from pretty much anywhere in my airspace, the flight would directly overfly JFK and LGA, which by the way, combined have more operations per year than LAX. So instead they stay on the same route as everybody else, which is about 40nm out of the way. What directs the downstream controllers give him, I don't know, but that is how we do it. BED, BDL, hell even FRG get direct all day from me. In a perfect world every medevac would get direct every time. Unfortunately, we don't conduct our operations in a vacuum. We have a long standing LOA with N.90 that tells us what we can and can't do regarding medevac, and we adhere to it. The medevac pilots also know what to expect.
N90-EWR
Well-Known Member
Good for you, I am not going to be so presumptuous to think that I know your airspace better than you do. However, do you think those same downstream controllers would have been just as eager to take that flight had it been direct from somewhere in the san diego area? Or if your medevac had been going to TOA or LGB? If I go direct to TEB from pretty much anywhere in my airspace, the flight would directly overfly JFK and LGA, which by the way, combined have more operations per year than LAX. So instead they stay on the same route as everybody else, which is about 40nm out of the way. What directs the downstream controllers give him, I don't know, but that is how we do it. BED, BDL, hell even FRG get direct all day from me. In a perfect world every medevac would get direct every time. Unfortunately, we don't conduct our operations in a vacuum. We have a long standing LOA with N.90 that tells us what we can and can't do regarding medevac, and we adhere to it. The medevac pilots also know what to expect.
ZNY usually brings TEB Medevacs over BWZ then direct TEB @7000. We have an ongoing automation issue because the sector that normally works TEB arrivals only owns 4 and below over BWZ, and the EWR arrival sector has 7000 to 5000 there, so the computer usually flashes to the wrong sector, and we've had a few instances of a Medevac dumped on the EWR arrival sector airspace and frequency without any coordination. There are several ATSAP reports on file on this going back for a while, but so far nothing has been done to fix it. this doesn't really affect the Medevacs, because we usually give them direct to the FAF as soon as we get them. Most Medevacs going to the other airports usually get direct with no issues. The only 2 airports with major issues are TEB and HPN, because of their close proximity to both EWR and LGA., as well as the path to TEB goes right through the MMU, and CDW class D. In order for a Medevac coming from the southeast to go direct TEB, you would have to stop both EWR 22R and 29 departures, as well as TEB rwy24, CDW rwy 22, and MMU 23 departures, go in a hold for EWR 22L, and on the rare ocasions LGA is on ILS 13, those have to be stopped as well. Easier said than done, specially because most times we don't get any early warning. The Medevac just shows up at the boundary blasting through a full speed, and even after stopping departures, you have to deal with whats in the air already, plus whatever else the towers have "rolling". I think all things considered we expedite them as much as possible, and those that fly Medevacs into TEB can atest to that.
Autothrust Blue
Welcome aboard the Washington State Ferries
DvLzArchAngL
2nd Gen Patco
According to my long standing LOA with Jesus, Section Six says "Thou Shalt Not Kill" (Medevacs & their patients) and I do my best to adhere to it.
And as we've said, this is about providing a better service. They, the FAA, can do way better to plan and coordinate to make sure that what you describe above doesn't happen with too little notice. Yeah it will happen but at least you'll be prepared. No sector should be surprised by a Medevac. Once their call comes in on the ground the ball should be rolling through every sector the same way we massively coordinate every other special op.
The Medevac should command the same respect and treatment in the air that it does on the ground.
ATC Jesus
Savior to the Medivacs
Thanks for the gold star, by the way! Happy to be doing my job and saving lives!
If you really want to whip it out and play the combined game, we get about 300,000 more operations per year from LAX and the airports surrounding LAX (the same vicinity distance as the JFK area airports, including EWR, FRG, and TEB).
I'll play that game all day long. That's why SCT is the busiest in the world, and works 1 million aircraft more every year than the great and powerful A80 that everyone keeps bringing up. Ever toured A80, by the way? Easy money! Everything nice and proceduralized and MIT out the wazoo. And here I thought SCT were a bunch of whiners. A LOA to cover medevacs? I'm going to look that one up in the repository tomorrow, but even SCT doesn't have anything like that. There are even controllers down there who actually care, and will work medevacs in direct. Not many of them, perhaps, but they exist.
N90-EWR, you have very good intentions, and I can appreciate what you do. You seem like you try your damndest with the medevacs, and I salute you! (I think another gold star is needed!) I am SHOCKED that aircraft come blasting through your airspace at full speed without warning, handoffs, etc...literally shocked. I have not had that happen to me one single time with any aircraft...ever, including medevacs, emergencies, or routine traffic. Is that SOP on the east coast? We all generally work together out here, even if we don't always have the same interests in mind. Never heard of anything like that ever happening.
As was said by my colleague, the answer is coordination. In our new FSOPs that came out last month, we have an entire chapter devoted to Negative-RVSM coordination; what's required of the controllers, what's required of the supervisors, what facility-to-facility coordination is needed, etc....an entire freakin' chapter!!! We very rarely get those flights in the first place, they have minimal impact on our operations, yet we coordinate the hell out of them. Emergencies...same thing. You have never seen so much coordination as you would see for a medical emergency, for example. The coordination covers every minute detail, damn near down to what the person is wearing and had for breafast that morning, even though 99.9% of the time, all the pertinent information has been passed by company to the crew at the airport.
But nobody lifts a finger for a medevac. There is no coordination. There are no phone calls. The supervisor isn't even notified that a medevac is in the airspace. Granted, we are busy. I think everyone participating now, sans Genot, works in a busy Level 12 facility. The Supes, the OMs, etc. should all be taking care of this coordination for us, so when a medevac does come through our airspace, it's just a matter of handing the aircraft off right down the line. If we spent even 1/2 as much time coordinating medevacs as we do negative-RVSM and changes of destination, we would be providing a hell of an improved service to the medevac flights.
If you really want to whip it out and play the combined game, we get about 300,000 more operations per year from LAX and the airports surrounding LAX (the same vicinity distance as the JFK area airports, including EWR, FRG, and TEB).
I'll play that game all day long. That's why SCT is the busiest in the world, and works 1 million aircraft more every year than the great and powerful A80 that everyone keeps bringing up. Ever toured A80, by the way? Easy money! Everything nice and proceduralized and MIT out the wazoo. And here I thought SCT were a bunch of whiners. A LOA to cover medevacs? I'm going to look that one up in the repository tomorrow, but even SCT doesn't have anything like that. There are even controllers down there who actually care, and will work medevacs in direct. Not many of them, perhaps, but they exist.N90-EWR, you have very good intentions, and I can appreciate what you do. You seem like you try your damndest with the medevacs, and I salute you! (I think another gold star is needed!) I am SHOCKED that aircraft come blasting through your airspace at full speed without warning, handoffs, etc...literally shocked. I have not had that happen to me one single time with any aircraft...ever, including medevacs, emergencies, or routine traffic. Is that SOP on the east coast? We all generally work together out here, even if we don't always have the same interests in mind. Never heard of anything like that ever happening.
As was said by my colleague, the answer is coordination. In our new FSOPs that came out last month, we have an entire chapter devoted to Negative-RVSM coordination; what's required of the controllers, what's required of the supervisors, what facility-to-facility coordination is needed, etc....an entire freakin' chapter!!! We very rarely get those flights in the first place, they have minimal impact on our operations, yet we coordinate the hell out of them. Emergencies...same thing. You have never seen so much coordination as you would see for a medical emergency, for example. The coordination covers every minute detail, damn near down to what the person is wearing and had for breafast that morning, even though 99.9% of the time, all the pertinent information has been passed by company to the crew at the airport.
But nobody lifts a finger for a medevac. There is no coordination. There are no phone calls. The supervisor isn't even notified that a medevac is in the airspace. Granted, we are busy. I think everyone participating now, sans Genot, works in a busy Level 12 facility. The Supes, the OMs, etc. should all be taking care of this coordination for us, so when a medevac does come through our airspace, it's just a matter of handing the aircraft off right down the line. If we spent even 1/2 as much time coordinating medevacs as we do negative-RVSM and changes of destination, we would be providing a hell of an improved service to the medevac flights.
N90-EWR
Well-Known Member
Thanks for the gold star, by the way! Happy to be doing my job and saving lives!
If you really want to whip it out and play the combined game, we get about 300,000 more operations per year from LAX and the airports surrounding LAX (the same vicinity distance as the JFK area airports, including EWR, FRG, and TEB).
I'm not going to get too much into the "my dick is bigger than yours" contest, but we're talking apples and oranges here. Any experienced ATC knows that traffic volume, and traffic complexity are 2 totally different things. SCT does have a slightly higher total traffic count, but they are not working in such a tight, funnel shape airspace. The complexity of all the different flows we have here is hard to describe in a few words on an internet forum, but suffice to say that I have seen controllers from other busy Tracons come here, and go "WTF are you guys doing here?" I've visited several of the top traffic count facilities, and while they put out massive numbers, I've yet to see anything even close to the chaos we got in that 30 mile ring around NYC. If any of my west coast brothers ever come over here, let me know and I'll gladly offer to be your tour guide.
Trust me...we do try our best. Its not that we don't want to help as much as we can, but that we have several things that need to be addressed, and fixed in order to make it happen. Number one: fix the automation, and for the love of god, get ZNY to do proper VERBAL coordination of medevacs over BWZ @7000. We have filed numerous ATSAP's over a long period of time, and yet we still have a recurring issue of piss poor coordination, and Medevacs dumped on the wrong sector's frequency without a proper handoff because ZNY apparently is incapable of doing a proper manual handoff for non standard aircraft on that route. its not SOP, and we don't have any issues with any other traffic. What happens is the computer can't figure out how to properly handoff to the right sector because the area that works that segment is a EWR arrival only corridor, so it kicks the handoff to the area that should be working the TEB traffic (that lies directly under), ZNY switches the aircraft to the EWR arrival sector, even though the aircraft flashed, and handoff was accepted by the other sector that lies underneath. Its hard to describe in words without actually showing you the map, because of the way the airspace setup is shaped. The EWR arrivals come on a star that is less 10 miles away from the TEB star.
We also have to change the culture of our local TMU unit. They are the ones that DON'T WANT us to stop departures, or hold traffic because of a MEDEVAC. You have to understand that our local TMU has a different set of priorities than the rest of the country. All they care is looking good at avoiding delays. Efficiency over safety in some cases is blatantly obvious. A good example is pushing for particular flows because they're more efficient for departures, even if you have to land with a tailwind of 15 knots or more. This happens routinely at both EWR and JFK. Ask any of the pilots on this forum that fly into either of those 2 airports regularly about landing with tailwinds here. If these bozos working TMU don't care about putting the flying public at risk by landing with strong tailwinds, all in the name of efficiency, do you think they care more about a medevac saving a few minutes, or about avoiding delaying the big 3 even more? The answer is they don't give a flying F, and that has been ongoing for my entire career here. The culture in this place (and ZNY) needs to change all the way from the top before you see any permanent solution.
genot
Well-Known Member
You nailed me. Just coasting along in a 10 doing nothing but leaching off the system. While the overlords are talking, could one of them deign to tell my level 12 Center Demi Gods to accept my request for direct the initial STAR fix at least on a life guard? Or perhaps direct anything? Being told to put them on the DP vector to join because they'll be forced to coordinate with another Demi God is getting old. For that matter, in the next cool kids meeting could you resolve to actually put a plane in need on the right freq or ship them prior to ten miles inside my boundary?
Yeah I'm the one who doesn't lift a finger.
Seriously. Our attitudes are colored by our experiences. My experiences with center on any kind of unusual flight are less than stellar. I'm used to getting emergencies at 360 (uh thanks, that's a regime of flight I have so much experience working, but my control!!!) about 30 out and someone is asking for better performance. I'm doing everything I can to get any special flight in. If I get virtually no notice (no a hand off 20 seconds before the boundary doesn't help) and I have conflicts that have been airborne for hours, well, I'm not clairvoyant. If those conflicts are typically too slow to get out of their own shadow's way let alone an LN hammering in, well...
You have good ideas with coordinating LNs. In fact they're terrific ideas that I'd like to see be policy. Your attitude toward most controllers and your presumption that you know how every facility and facility type works is pretty presumptuous and hurts your credibility though. I almost feel like you want to march into every non 12 saying you suck, in 30 days I'll know this operation better than you.
GolfChuck
Trustworthy Source
If a patient on a Lear isn't stable enough to tolerate an extra few minutes to go RBV V249 METRO instead of direct, then they probably should not have been crossing the freakin ocean in the first place. Don't try to tell me I kill people because I don't pass out indiscriminate directs to every medevac that comes my way. If you actually read any of N90-EWRs posts, you might have an idea as to what that would entail. You can't simply stop all the traffic around the metropolitan area to get that medevac in, it would be like stopping a freight train. I ship those guys before they hit RBV. they get direct through my airspace, what happens after that I don't know, what I do know is the next sector isn't taking the hand-off if I go direct.
Maybe you should tell me why medevacs don't just file flight plans departure direct destination? If they filed it, they know there is a possibility that they may have to fly all or at least a portion of the route they filed, and I am sure that they advised the medical professionals responsible for the patient/organ/whatever on their flight If I am a lifeguard pilot my expectation of priority handling would be getting my requested altitude, no holding, and the route I filed.
Oh so something exists in the NAS that you never heard of? Amazing because I thought you knew everything.
ATC Jesus
Savior to the Medivacs
PSPDSLC; and screw R-4808N and their crap there.
The R-4808 folks can take pointouts on medevacs just like almost every other restricted airspace in our center.
Not a big deal at all. Nice try though!
The R-4808 folks can take pointouts on medevacs just like almost every other restricted airspace in our center.
Not sure Dreamland Control would be agreeable to that.....but you can try them on the landline, if they answer. Let me know how that one works out.
