i know some of you guys play FSX, so i thought you might find this article interesting...

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/US ... ngton.planes.controllers/

Quote :

Two planes landed safely early Wednesday morning at Washington's Reagan National Airport after they were unable to reach anyone at the airport's air traffic control tower, according to the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board.

couldn't they have just contacted another airport and landed there instead?

To prevent hijacking aeroplanes are only fuelled enough to make their target airport. Once inside the grid chances are they will not have enough fuel to make it to another airport.

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

To prevent hijacking aeroplanes are only fuelled enough to make their target airport.

Got a sauce for that? My understanding was they always have an alternative airport worked out in case they cannot use their destination, and thus must have enough fuel to divert.

Quote from boothy :

Got a sauce for that? My understanding was they always have an alternative airport worked out in case they cannot use their destination, and thus must have enough fuel to divert.

Somewhere on BBC News, I read it many moons ago, so it could be possible they keep a small reserve to divert. But excess fuel is also burnt off/dumped so if the plane crashes on landing it won't burn for as long.

either way, the tri-city area has a lot of airports...

you're supposed to contact the tower some distance away from the airport, i think they probably could have diverted to dulles, or worse, potomac airfield.

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

To prevent hijacking aeroplanes are only fuelled enough to make their target airport. Once inside the grid chances are they will not have enough fuel to make it to another airport.

That's not true at all. Sometimes planes will have to circle for a long time at an airport if the weather is bad so they'll probably have at least an extra 10% if not more on board.

zZz. I suppose doing an important job isn't a good enough reason to stay awake.

Guy! We're right here....shazam!

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

zZz. I suppose doing an important job isn't a good enough reason to stay awake.

Having an important job to do isn't a good reason to have reasonable shift times and a sufficient amount of employees?

Quote from NotAnIllusion :

Having an important job to do isn't a good reason to have reasonable shift times and a sufficient amount of employees?

I'm not saying have one guy running nights is a good idea. But when you're rocking an important job, you make the effort to stay awake. But then there are many cases of 911 staff falling asleep at the post.

So if the guy had a heart attack, whose fault is it then?

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

To prevent hijacking aeroplanes are only fuelled enough to make their target airport. Once inside the grid chances are they will not have enough fuel to make it to another airport.

I don't think that's entirely accurate. I read an article about the planes incoming to Tokyo during the earthquake. The planes were kept in a holding pattern for up to two and a half hours. That's plenty of fuel to fly to another country.