Tarrance Ceramer's Response: Response

Against the Flow is the article I read for this assignment, it’s written by Tarrance Kramer an Air Traffic Controller (ATC). Kramer shares some stressful experiences he’s had on the job, what he took from his experiences and while the article circles around his specific encounters, he also tells about a situation that required the FAA to take action and establish some new rules. While the stories where enticing, I was very lost in the words and acronyms, because I am not familiar with the lingo of ATC.

Kramer starts off reminiscing about “The Good Old Days” and when he able to conduct opposite direction operations (ODO). The official Pilot/Controller Glossary defines ODO: “Aircraft are operating in opposite directions when: a. They are following the same track in reciprocal directions; or b. Their tracks are parallel and the aircraft are flying in reciprocal directions; or c. Their tracks intersect at an angle of more than 135 degrees.” What I took from that is, two planes going

A second Republic Embraer 170—RPA3329—checked in “on the river,” eastbound on the River Visual to Runway 19, converging with the climbing, northwest-bound CHQ aircraft. Tower directed RPA3299 to turn southbound, heading 180. The two aircraft missed one another by only 0.8 nautical miles and 800 feet, well below the three miles and 1000 feet required. That was an operational error, “a deal” in ATC shorthand.” Reading this, I was unable to decipher the full meaning, because I am not familiar with nautical miles, but it sounded like two aircraft were really close to each other going in opposite directions. The fiasco didn’t stop their either, the supervisor had to direct all the aircraft coming and going and have some make tight turns to avoid a collision with another aircraft. Remarkably, no one was hurt and this series of events made national news. Concluding with the FAA not allowing ODO, which meant the good old days were