Those airplanes looked like they got awfully close....
Time: Mid 1980's
Place: Indianapolis Tower
Players: Me, a ham operator friend who will remain unnamed, a honked off Delta pilot and a hot tempered US Airways pilot. Arnie Miller (AT Supervisor)
A T supervisor stands for Air Traffic Supervisor. Arnie (Arnold Miller) was on that night as the supervisor and he was a good dude, he seemed to have infinite patience with angry pilots most of the time. It was an evening shift and I was expecting a ham radio operator friend to arrive at the tower for a look around. I had suggested he come at night for a number of reasons. The view on a clear night is great, there are no dayshift workers milling around, there is very little air traffic (back in the pre-freighter days), nothing could possibly go wrong. Or so I thought. The weather was warm and clear, great for a night trip up to the tower to enjoy the view from 140 feet up. What I didn't know is trouble was brewing in the RADAR room downstairs. In a large airport environment like Indianapolis or Saint Louis or Memphis, traffic is routed to the airport by an ARTCC (Air Route Traffic Control Center) then handed off to a terminal RADAR controller at about 10,000 feet and 20 or 30 miles from the airport. That controller is called a RADAR approach controller and he will give the pilot altitude and speed directions to sequence them into the airport in a efficient and safe manner. The approach controller then hands the aircraft off to the tower which is usually attached to the same building, to a local controller in that tower. At that point the aircraft is under the direction of the local controller who can usually see the aircraft by looking out the tower windows. He then directs the pilot to the runway. At least that is the way it is supposed to work. You might want to read a previous story if you have not already read it .....HE HAD A RED FLANNEL PLAID SHIRT ON - pay particular attention to the part about working with a headset rather than a speaker. If you already read that one you can skip this link.
.....HE HAD A RED FLANNEL PLAID SHIRT ON
It was a nice view of the airport that night, my ham friend was looking around at the runway and taxiway lights, enjoying the view. Over the SPEAKER (smart controllers use a headset) came the voice of the RADAR approach controller down in the RADAR room. He had two aircraft to hand off to the local controller. It went something like this. "I have two guys on a dead heat for the intersecting runways. Number one is US Air *** and number two is Delta ***. Sorry, we have been trying to get the Delta pilot to slow down and he will not drop airspeed. You will have to slow him down on approach to make it work". It was real obvious looking out the window as the DC-9's converged on the airport it was NOT going to work. If the Delta flight did not slow down both aircraft would cross at the runway intersection and be in the exact same space at the exact same time. Naturally the local controller tried to sweet talk the Delta pilot into slowing his approach just a little. For some reason that will probably never be known the Delta pilot was having none of this slow down business and he was still barreling into the airport on a dead heat to his fate in the runway intersection. It was a little like a one lap figure 8 stock car race only with airplanes. Both the local controller and the ground controller were aware I had a visitor in the tower and both could see big trouble coming in the runway intersection. Both aircraft crossed the airport perimeter fence at the same time and were headed nose to nose for the spot where the runways cross with both at the usual 140 mph approach speed. In a situation like this it is the responsibility of the local controller to order one of the aircraft to terminate his approach and execute a "go around". Protocol is for the second aircraft that called (in this case the Delta) to be ordered around the pattern for a second approach. In an almost panic voice the local controller transmitted "DELTA *** GO AROUND" and the Delta captain politely said "roger - go around". Usually at that point a pilot will throttle up, pull up, and go around for another approach. What this pilot did was throttle up, WAY up, climb to about 30 or 40 feet and buzz the US Air DC-9 right in the intersection right over the top of the US Air DC-9. I have looked out that window a lot over the years and I can tell you that is as close as I ever saw two moving airplanes get. You could hear a pin drop in the tower and the two controllers said nothing, knowing there was a visitor standing right behind them and observing the entire event. It is interesting to speculate what they were thinking. I was thinking something along the lines of HOLY #$#$^!@^ that was CLOSE, but said nothing. To this day my ham radio operator friend does not know what he saw. He was a bit of a UFO, Black Helicopter, conspiracy theory kind of guy and I did not want him relating the details of what he had seen to the folks over at the Indianapolis Star Newspaper. We concluded the tower tour and we went to the elevator where I pushed the button to take us down to the first floor. Then he made the comment: "those airplanes got awfully close" to which I replied "it was a standard go around and VFR which is see and avoid weather and procedure (which was true)". He accepted that explanation and I forgot to mention the RADAR control room which would have been the second part of that tour. I got him safely out the door of the equipment room and to his car in the parking lot and on his way home. Then I beat it to the supervisors office, thinking I might have to do some RADAR or other equipment checks if there were any pilot complaints. As I walked up to the door I could hear a pilot screaming on the phone. I assumed Arnie was on a speaker phone, which seemed odd. As I rounded the door to his office I saw him resting his chin on his hands and the phone way laying on the desk pointing down at the glass cover on the desk. The pilot was so loud it sounded like the conference speaker was on. Arnie was just talking at the glass to respond to the pilots complaints. The pilot was using a lot of colorful language and was very very angry. The comments were something along the line of "THAT CRAZY S*O*B* TRIED TO KILL ME" to which Arnie with a calm voice replied "captain there were no FAR's (Federal Air Regulations) broken, there is nothing I can do.....", "the pilot executed a go around as commanded...", "yes, he should have pulled up more....". That only seemed to anger the US Air pilot more. Once the phone handset cooled off and was back in the smoldering phone cradle I asked Arnie if I should do any equipment checks to CYA (Cover Your Ass) and he replied it was not necessary. It was an unbelievably insane thing to do, it was very unprofessional, it needlessly endangered lives and property, but technically no one broke any rules. To this day my ham radio friend does not know what he saw. To this day I have never seen two moving airplanes get that close. I have no idea if there were any passengers on board. In those days that late at night probably not. A smart controller uses a headset, in particular when there are visitors in the tower.