The problem arose because the ground controller is trying to move planes around like a finely choreographed ballet. His instructions (prior to this video) were "Delta, follow Corporate" and "Jet Blue 1069, follow Delta". However, JB 1069 spoke to the Delta flight, who explained they were waiting for the Corporate jet, so JB 1069 decided he was going to go ahead and jump from 3rd in line to 1st in line, thereby messing up the whole scheme. This is where the controller says, "You can't just do that".
This is a ATC trying to maintain both visual and misread locations from the Tower Control, trying to make sense of the mess in one of the busy airports in the world. The pilots is trying just try to navigate so many lazy pilots and taxi them through the runway, and making sense of conflicting info of visual and false info on the map.... BRAVO to him.... listen again.
I imagine they are still in the stone age using flight strips and mental memories of the situation on the ground when even video games have very precise visuals of the airport and movement of aircraft.
"I told you to go where you are?" "Exactly" "I did, ok sir.". Hilarious, and you know what? Not just the controller is a great guy, the pilots noticed how desperatly close to total resignation he was and the did not give him hard times at all :-)
Wasn’t it unable to do anything? The controller was annoyed due to the pilot reacting 180 degrees to his directives. It came down to language issues and never saying he couldn’t make sense of his rapid fire NY accent.
The video was better before it got too silly to synch up with what was actually happening. I understand the intention there, but I was more involved and more entertained while it was being played straighter.
You state in the beginning of the video "...understanding of the facts that lead a JFK ATC GND controller to retire at age 32." In reality, the controller in question (Arny) was fired from his job at Kennedy (JFK). He went on to work at La Guardia (LGA) and was once again fired. He now works as a local controller at Islip/Long Island Mac Arthur (ISP) changing between tower, ground and clearance usually working weekends. Occasionally, pilots have asked: Aren't you the guy in that video?
God bless this controller. I’m looking at a coloring book explanation with color coded plane icons and I still have little clue what’s going on. I would have thrown my headset and walked home.
The controller is not fully to blame here. The overall layout and naming of the taxiways and apron entrance/exit points at JFK are a mess. Take an airport like (YYZ) Toronto Pearson (my home airport) for example. Taxiways = X, Runway high speed exits = X1, Apron entrance/exit = XX. In my opinion, I believe that a surface naming system like YYZ and other Canadian airports, are much easier for pilots and on ground personnel to understand and follow.
JFK is always hilarious. Remember the kid controller? BTW, this guy was not fired, he was moved to a smaller airport, I think Long Island MacArthur. I maintain he'd be great as a radio talk show host.
Yes Kennedy Steve would have prevented the whole mess from happening. But we have to remember that this epioside dates from (apparently) 2010, well before KS had made a name for himself as the world's dominant ground controller. (And a shout-out to H89SA who helped to make that happen.) There are a few legendary figures (now mostly retired) who could do things nobody else could do. If it's the bottom of the ninth with the score tied, two on and a full count, you need Mariano Rivera. If your plane's engines are both dead and there's no dry landing option available, you need Sully. And if the JFK taxiway system is totally gridlocked, you need Kennedy Steve. Like the others, he's retired. Like the others, he's a freak of nature (to borrow a phrase from Al Haynes.) We're glad he served us as long he could.
@ 6:55 JFK Ground: "Jetblue 144, you an inbound or an outbound?" Jetblue 144: "Inbound to Whiskey" JFK Ground: "I told you to go where you are?" Jetblue 144: "Exactly"
Why don't they just all send the GPS position over the transponder so the ATC could have just had a graphic on a screen with the full overview so he don't have to ask for their position all the time?
Lmao...'you can't just...you can't just do that...See this takes so much energy, guys' *mainlines more caffeine* and this illustrates some of the issues the A380 causes. I've seen the Jepp charts for JFK and lots of them are almost exclusively dedicated to the A380 and where it can and cannot go
The controller, Patrick Harten, 35 did the Miracle on thehudson with Sully. This was a guy arny .."the controller in question (Arny) was fired from his job at Kennedy (JFK). He went on to work at La Guardia (LGA) and was once again fired. He now works as a local controller at Islip/Long Island Mac Arthur (ISP) changing between tower, ground and clearance usually working weekends. Occasionally, pilots have asked: Aren't you the guy in that video"
I feel for the guy when it is obvious the pilots up front took matters in their own hands. I hope the controller survived this incident and is thriving.
Nope he got transferred to a smaller airport not too long after this and another incident in which he let one of his kids transmit air traffic control transmissions
As far as I know, intentionally, I didn't cut anything out. The pilots were really sympathetic. Well... they otta be if they were to get out of the tangle. :D
Now, this is probably just because I have NO idea of how ATC works (so I'm sorry if this is a really stupid comment), but why don't they just implement the use of GPS? It may not help the routing but at least they'd be able to to see where everyone is at any time.
It was probably out of service because you can hear him sequencing strips around while he figures out the order (the click noises in the background). I'm a controller and this happens sometimes and it takes a lot of transmissions to figure it out but it's not a big deal.
@SavaMarkovicPilot He is a terrible controller. Also, his phraseology is still lagging behind. Rather than using current taxiing instructions (Runway 33L, taxi via.....) he uses the old style (Taxi to runway 33L via...).
