Does anyone know the story here?

I have a friend that instructed in San Diego for a while and he inherited a student with the unfortunate nickname "PendleChen."

Staying calm and making sure everyone is safe is the better option over losing it on someone and potentially making a bad situation worse... besides these days you just end up looking like a tool on the internet. ;)
 
Interesting story.

Having triple digit landings into KIWA, I know that they can be sharpshooters at times. However, I am going to look into the legality of a controller instructing an aircraft to land against their wish.

I too would love to see the radar track of the aircraft, just to get an idea of what was going on. I have had a number of students that did, how shall we say... "odd things," in KIWA airspace. Then again I was always in the aircraft to fix things. Sending a solo student, particularly a foreign student, into the IWA-FFZ-PHX airspace is like basically inviting yourself to lunch at your local FSDO.

I would also like to know if the girl was indeed a PPL, and how the situation was resolved.
 
Regarding the legality of a controller telling a pilot they must land, I think it is (legal) but I also think a pilot would be legally justified by 91.103b in saying "unable" if they didn't plan on landing at that airport in the first place. I don't know if I would actually do it, but it might be a good idea to get to another airport and deal with the aftermath without your plane being held hostage.
 
X-Forces said:
Legality of a controller instructing an aircraft to land against their wish.
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That would be a good question for the controller forum. That or I can break out the good old FAR/AIM.

I was thinking some more about the remark I made about the pilot being a student. If she was rated it would be a safe assumption that she was newly minted. Also if she trained out of a smaller airport in the PHX area wouldn't her CFI want her to get some dual time at places like KIWA?

Edit: I just noticed that the plane in question was based out of KAVQ. So it was defiantly not based in the PHX area.
 
91.3 says I can give everyone the finger! The results may vary though. :D

I will say that I personally would never follow such an asinine request if I hadn't planned on going there. So you screwed up in the air, are flustered, and now are going to try and taxi there? Nope nope

This controller needs to get laid. I've never heard a controller in KGFK get remotely this irritated and it's worse up there
 
- instructing an aircraft to land because the pilot is a hazard to aviation sounds a little suspect. I'd like to know how the controller determined that. The audio doesn't really give me a good idea of the circumstances.

- the ground controller was a little odd as well. Taxiing around an airport which you are not familiar with is dangerous? Holy cow, there are thousands of dangerous airline pilots flying to destinations that are apparently dangerous now too! :) Should have offered a progressive and left the editorial comments for the controller break room.

- I've pulled my hair out over some of the "weekend warriors" flying in and out of NY's airspace, but when I want to throw a piston and go to the dark side, that's their airspace as much as it is mine when I'm not in the JFK terminal area. I've got 14,000 hours, a fresh cup of joe from the forward galley and (on arrival) two other pilots, the guy rockin' the Mooney doesn't have 1% of the resources I have so I'm not about to look down on him when he screws something up.


Sent from my TRS-80
 
Derg said:
- instructing an aircraft to land because the pilot is a hazard to aviation sounds a little suspect. I'd like to know how the controller determined that. The audio doesn't really give me a good idea of the circumstances.

- the ground controller was a little odd as well. Taxiing around an airport which you are not familiar with is dangerous? Holy cow, there are thousands of dangerous airline pilots flying to destinations that are apparently dangerous now too! :) Should have offered a progressive and left the editorial comments for the controller break room.

- I've pulled my hair out over some of the "weekend warriors" flying in and out of NY's airspace, but when I want to throw a piston and go to the dark side, that's their airspace as much as it is mine when I'm not in the JFK terminal area. I've got 14,000 hours, a fresh cup of joe from the forward galley and (on arrival) two other pilots, the guy rockin' the Mooney doesn't have 1% of the resources I have so I'm not about to look down on him when he screws something up.


Sent from my TRS-80
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Question!

How are you like, 40, and already have 14,000 hours? Are you aware that you probably work too much? Lowest time at retirement wins! :)
 
UAL747400 said:
91.3 says I can give everyone the finger! The results may vary though. :D

I will say that I personally would never follow such an asinine request if I hadn't planned on going there. So you screwed up in the air, are flustered, and now are going to try and taxi there? Nope nope

This controller needs to get laid. I've never heard a controller in KGFK get remotely this irritated and it's worse up there
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Couldn't agree more!
This controller needs to spend a day in any tower (other than MIA) in southern Florida.
Not that I would wish a damage to a plane on landing but if ever there was a time for it......"but he ORDERED me to land, I hadn't planned for this, I was confused, he was yelling at me"
 
The responsibility of the controller is to separate aircraft. Keep planes clear of her, tell her you can no longer provide services due to saturation, and send her on her way. He had absolutely no business "making" her land. Hopefully he gets a little lesson in Section 2-1-1 of the 7110.65, which makes no mention of performing the duties of a FSDO.
 
TFaudree_ERAU said:
The responsibility of the controller is to separate aircraft. Keep planes clear of her, tell her you can no longer provide services due to saturation, and send her on her way. He had absolutely no business "making" her land. Hopefully he gets a little lesson in Section 2-1-1 of the 7110.65, which makes no mention of performing the duties of a FSDO.
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Those were the words I was looking for. A controller can't order a pilot-in-command to do Jack.
 
If she was such a danger at the airports airspace why order her to land there?? Why not safely kick her out of the airspace and then told her to call the famous number for a possible pilot deviation?????
 
From a safety standpoint, does it make sense to bark at an obviously confused student? That's like when your wife shouts "you're doing it wrong!!!!" in bed and expects you to somehow improve (or so I'm told). Controllers would feel pretty bad if the girl started crying all the way to her crater.
 
Autothrust Blue said:
Those were the words I was looking for. A controller can't order a pilot-in-command to do Jack.
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However, 91.123(b) says "Except in an emergency, no person may operate an aircraft contrary to an ATC instruction in an area in which air traffic control is exercised." So, while their regs say it is their job to keep us separated, our regs say it is our duty to listen to them, if we are under their control. I don't agree with him telling her to land, and I think that it is a bit of a stretch of his power, but if he felt he couldn't do his primary job safely, keeping aircraft separated, it seems he felt he was required to get her to land and not push the problem off to someone else. if she doesn't listen, then she would be facing two deviations correct? The one she already had been instructed to call the tower about and then not listening to them requesting(demanding) she land. Lose lose for her.

The ground controller is a D though. "You shouldn't be taxiing around an unfamiliar airport without an instructor". You told her to land there when she wasn't expecting it, what did you expect?
 
Murdoughnut said:
From a safety standpoint, does it make sense to bark at an obviously confused student? That's like when your wife shouts "you're doing it wrong!!!!" in bed and expects you to somehow improve (or so I'm told). Controllers would feel pretty bad if the girl started crying all the way to her crater.
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all in all she took them berating her frequently well. she never barked back at them.

i concur with you that if someone is a hazard, the best thing would be to direct them to safety, not lecture them. it would be interesting to hear the whole picture.
 
rframe said:
Exactly. While a controller might ask for a call (in which case you're a fool to say anything incriminating on the phone because it's being recorded, decline to comment and get an aviation lawyer) and the controller might pass the events along to an inspector for investigation, that's it.
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That may be true at some towers, but at the local airport here, the tower's phone lines are not recorded.
 
Shiner said:
KIWA has become an interesting place over the past few years.
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When it was a UPT base back in the day, it was busy as hell and it handled fine. Granted that was with tower only controlling the center runway, but still I can't remember there being much in the way of conflicts that made any kind of news or caused any kind of accidents.
 
I heard they yelled at air force one when it landed there several months ago. They always have to make a snide remark when you screw up there, even if it's something harmless.
 
msmspilot said:
That may be true at some towers, but at the local airport here, the tower's phone lines are not recorded.
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Either way, you dont make a statement to these guys. They can chew you out if they want and they might just want to blow off some steam and that's the end of it, but an investigation (if they even open one) should be between the FSDO guys and your aviation attorney, not you and the the PO'd controller. If there's an investigation and the controller makes a statement like, "so I had him call me after he taxied to the ramp and he apologized 3 times for landing on the wrong runway and forcing that Airbus to go around"... you're not leaving much for your lawyer to work with.
 
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