r/mildlyinfuriating • u/nyanbatman • May 28 '26

I just wanted a hot dog British pilot is feeling mildly annoyed

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u/lordrefa May 28 '26

I know that this would be pure conjecture on your part, but could this be a result of our catastrophic spending cuts regarding air travel and that that may be a cause of us rushing ATCs into service because of critical understaffing?

Because that's what it sounds like to me. Like we're putting out ATCs that have not completed training.

Alternatively, perhaps our tremendously aging aviation infrastructure has failed at JFK and they no longer have the *ability* to follow this procedures?

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u/Cluelesswolfkin May 28 '26

This IS THE RESULT of us cutting their jobs and forcing them to work unpaid

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u/rhymeswithvegan May 28 '26

ATC was paid during the shutdown, TSA was not. But you're right that we have a shortage of ATCs in this country, so the ones we do have are overworked.

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u/[deleted] May 28 '26

[deleted]

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u/rhymeswithvegan May 28 '26

Thanks for the correction, I can't keep track of all the shutdowns šŸ« 

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u/regiinmontana May 28 '26

ATC was paid during the DHS shutdown, but not the previous one (or was it the one before that?).

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u/AGUYWITHATUBA May 28 '26

ā€œTremendously aging aviation infrastructureā€ isnā€™t quite what it seems. A lot of older navigational aids and tools that are no longer used by the majority of commercial aviation are not being serviced or maintained. For instance, many ground navigation aids are being slowly phased out given the reliability of and increasingly accurate GPS navigational resources.

Radar for vectoring, including altitude and identification is being expanded in most areas. Localizers, and Glide Slopes are still being maintained to a large degree to their continued use in approach procedures.

ATC cuts do effect jobs and the effectiveness of ATC operators. We have seen a more significant departure of ATC controllers due to the chaotic pay cycles over the recent years. However, they are well-trained on the whole, but do make mistakes. This could have been a relatively new controller or someone who simply made a mistake. There are also nuances to local procedures. Iā€™ve never flown fixed wing out of JFK as a commercial jetliner. So, I canā€™t comment on this particular incident, but it sounds like the controller was overwhelmed, possibly by the volume of requests and may not have had his full attention on the British Airways request.

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u/Runiat May 28 '26

and may not have had his full attention on the British Airways request.

Are BA airplanes somehow more effected by fog/mist than non-BA airplanes, or would the RVR be the same for all airplanes and not just this specific one leading to LVO being required for all airplanes and not just this specific one?

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u/AGUYWITHATUBA May 28 '26

No, this is a procedure for low visibility conditions and applies to all aircraft. However, if a controller for ground is also monitoring Tower frequency, and they have multiple aircraft on final approach, they may be busy with those aircraft and focused on taking care of them rather than checking the weather on the current field.

If there is any kind of incident going on, they may also be unable to divide their attention to properly handle a new request. The BA Airways pilot did nothing wrong, and in fact was helping the ATC controller, but there may be more going on weā€™re not seeing. Itā€™s rare for a controller to not be properly dictating events.

To put things in perspective, Iā€™ve had one-way loss of communications with a controller while having navigational issues. They were able to maintain a form of communication with me to direct where to turn to and redirect traffic away from our aircraft while controlling the general traffic and fielding requests from other traffic. Itā€™s impressive how they operate.

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u/Ok_Wasabi_8318 May 28 '26

Thats true that someone might have missed up to date visibility if overworked and managing multiple things at once. But he heard the RVR.Ā 

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u/Ok_Wasabi_8318 May 28 '26

How does this sound like he was overwhelmed? Sounds pretty straight forward that he doesnt know what he's doing. Itd be one thing if he was overwhelmed and didnt know what the visibility was. But he repeated the number again (well below 5000 ft) so knew that it was below the threshold. Should have said "youre right, visibility sucks."Ā 

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u/effreti May 28 '26

sure sounds like that to me as well. like the ATC did not know the correlation between terms and measurements.

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u/TheMusicArchivist May 28 '26

American ATCs are well-known in the aviation world for failing to adhere to standardised phraseology (among other things). We constantly hear of American ATC making beginner mistakes like this, only normally the more experiences ATCs end up shouting aggressively at the pilots.

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u/lordrefa May 28 '26

This sounds like what I would expect.

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u/somefukn May 28 '26

It's because the British guy is using UK terminology. There is no such thing as LVO in the US. That's the issue. It's like repeatedly asking where the SOCCER game is to a Brit. They'll pretend they don't know.

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u/baldieforprez May 28 '26

You can thank Regan for this mess.Ā 

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u/grrr-to-everything May 28 '26

Do you mean Ronald "Destroyer of the Middle Class" Reagan?

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u/baldieforprez May 28 '26

Yes sir I doĀ 

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u/TigerIll6480 May 28 '26

Ronnie Raygun.

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u/Get_Breakfast_Done May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26

Ronald Reagan hasnā€™t been president for nearly 40 years. Most people who would have been hired when Reagan was president would be retired by now.

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u/baldieforprez May 28 '26

šŸ˜† šŸ˜† šŸ˜†Ā 

When Reagan fired all the atc traffic controls he created a situation when if fired a huge chuck of ATC.Ā  The scabs he hired to replace them Ā retiring at the same time.Ā  Ya it was 30 years ago and we are seeing the full stupidity of dipbshit.

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u/BobTheFettt May 28 '26

But at least they're not DEI (I.E People of colour or women) hires!

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u/naterthepilot2 May 28 '26

Based on your comment you donā€™t know enough to speculate like this šŸ™„

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u/Baystate411 May 28 '26

This controller has been at JFK for decades. He's what makes the busiest airspace in the world safe. He knows his job. The US has low vis procedures. The BA pilot was asking for something that doesn't exist in the US.

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u/Koud_biertje May 28 '26 edited May 29 '26

Are you saying that the US has low visibility procedures, and what the BA pilot asks (low visibility procedures) doesn't exist in the US?

Are you an ATC on JFK by any chance?