Who doesn’t want to work in a good company, have a resting room, game room, music room and get a huge salary? Have you ever heard air traffic controllers? People who have chosen to work not only want to get money but also want to have a comfortable office. Having a job like air traffic controllers is one of the jobs that fulfill those criteria.
The job of air traffic controllers has a high risk and is a very stressful job because they must control a thousand aircraft for more than 24 hours and must not make a mistake. It is easy to make air traffic controllers feel saturated even though the management has arranged their work time. So, the company gives the break every 180 minutes, builds a resting room, game room, and a music room. Given all the facilities that Air Navigation Indonesia provides to the employees, air traffic controllers have a big responsibility such as controlling the separation between landing and departing aircraft, giving pilots taxiing and take-off instructions, and avoiding the aircraft from the crash on the air.
One of transportation that has developed is air transportation. Air transportation is the safest transportation in the world. People prefer to choose air transportation because nowadays there are many airlines that provide a low fare. It means every person can fly with the aircraft. Now we can see at the airport, there are a lot of aircraft that operate there and then the air traffic is getting busy. To handle this problem, air traffic controllers must make the separation between landing and departing aircraft. There are three kinds of separation such as vertical separation, horizontal separation and composite separation. Vertical separation is based on the difference of altitude. Horizontal separation includes longitudinal separation and lateral separation. Longitudinal separation is the way to keep separation of the aircraft that fly in the same track or different tracks based on time. Lateral separation gives the different ways or tracks. Composite separation is the combination between longitudinal separation and lateral separation. For the aircraft that fly in the same track, air traffic controllers will give five minutes for departing aircraft if the previous aircraft has a speed of 20 knots and three minutes if the previous aircraft has a speed 40 knots. Air traffic controllers make sure while the aircraft is taking-off, the runway must clear from everything. While the aircraft is landing, air traffic controllers will give the clearance for landing based on the condition of runway. If there is another aircraft that will take-off, the aircraft must hold. Holding is moving around until the air traffic controllers give the pilot clearance for landing. This separation is important to keep the safety flight, especially for the airport that has one runway. Runway does not use for two aircrafts at once. It means the aircraft must take turns to landing or departing. So air traffic controllers must give separation to avoid collision between landing and departing aircraft.
Another responsibility of air traffic controllers is to control all the activities on the ground that includes giving the aircraft taxiing and take-off instructions. Taxiing is the phase of flight in which the aircraft moves slowly from the apron to the final runway. After that, the aircraft ready for take-off. Take-off is the moment when an aircraft leaves the ground and begins to fly. Taxiing and take-off instructions are important because pilots cannot control the aircraft without air traffic controllers. This instruction also avoids crashing the aircraft with the equipment on the ground such as car, the ground staff, or the other aircraft parking on the apron. Sometimes there is misunderstanding between pilots and air traffic controllers. In 1978, B747 KLM airline from Amsterdam that carried 234 passengers crashed with B747 Pan Am airline from Los Angles that carried 380 passengers. Both of airlines will flight to Gran Canaria International Airport. Because there was a bomb threat, the flight must move to an alternate airport, Tenerife North Airport that has only one runway. In the afternoon, KLM airline and Pan Am airline were allowed to fly to their destination. Because there was a lot of aircraft that parking in the taxiway, KLM airline use runway to taxiing to take-off point. It is called taxi back. The weather was foggy so the visibility was low and air traffic controllers use radio for communication. The Pan Am airline also was ready to runway. While in take-off point, pilot of KLM airline asked to get clearance and said “we are now at take-off” and air traffic controllers reply “OK, stand by for take-off. We will call you”. Pilot guessed that “OK” meant that he got clearance for take-off. In another condition, Pan Am airline moved to runway to taxi back. He also got the information that the runway is clear, but pilot felt there is something. He heard the communication between air traffic controllers and KLM airline. And then the pilots of Pan Am seem KLM airline in front of his aircraft. When the pilot of KLM realized that there is Pan Am airline, he tried to climb but this premature climbing made his aircraft tail touched the runway and there was fire. Pan Am airline tried to take out from the runway, but it was late, the body aircraft has crashed with nose aircraft of KLM airline. The engine of KLM airline has fallen, but the aircraft still fly around 150 meters and then the aircraft burst. Because of this collision, all the passengers of KLM airline died and 326 passengers of Pan Am airline also died.
Another task of air traffic controllers is to avoid the aircraft from the crash on the air. From 1992 to 2015, there were 318 of the crashes and a thousand incident of near miss for civil aviation or military aviation. Although it is possible to occur, but the probability is low. The advance in technology and standard procedure of safety flight can minimize the crash. There are some causes of the crash such as the altitude level and separation which are not base on standard and bad weather. If there is the crash, the effect comes not only for the aircraft, but also for air traffic controllers. Air traffic controllers can be stressful and feeling guilty because they have been making a big fault and make people died even though the real causes are not by their fault. If this happens, air traffic controllers who control these aircraft must be isolated. The management takes out air traffic controllers to another room and do not make air traffic controllers panic. In this situation, nobody can ask air traffic controllers about the incident because it will make them more stressful. To avoid the aircraft from the crash on the air, International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has made procedure based on distance and altitude. ICAO divides this procedure into two models. First, a flight to east heading use the odd altitude such as Flight Level (FL) 290, FL310, FL330, FL350, FL370, FL390, and FL410. Second, a flight to west heading use the even altitude such as FL300,FL320, FL340, FL360, FL380, and FL400. It means, two aircrafts in the same altitude and airways must have distance around 5 nautical miles or 9,2 kilometres. The aircraft in the same airways must have the distance about 1000 feet or 305 metres. Besides the regulation, the technology in the aircraft also helps to avoid the crash. It is called Traffic Collision Avoiding System (TCAS) emitting radio signal in a certain distance. If the signal touching another aircraft, there is warning in the each cockpit. There are two phases of warning, Traffic Advisory (TA) and Resolution Advisory (RA). Traffic advisory will appear when the distance each aircraft reach 3,3 nautical miles or 6 kilometres and the difference of altitude is 850 feet or 250 metres. TCAS will say “traffic traffic…” to announce that there is another aircraft. The screen of cockpit will show the position another aircraft include the altitude. At this moment, the aircraft must not do maneuvers because it will threaten the flight. Resolution advisory will appear when the distance each aircraft in 2,1 nautical miles or 4 kilometres. At this distance, TCAS systems give a warning to one aircraft to climb and another aircraft will descend. To avoid the collision, air traffic controllers gives instruction to pilots to change the direction, velocity, and flight level.
In conclusion, having a job like air traffic controllers is not easy. Air traffic controllers have a big responsibility, must not make mistakes and make sure that the flight is safe. This job also has a high risk because air traffic controllers must control thousand flights every day. Although it is one of the stressful jobs, the responsibility of air traffic controllers is comparable with the facilities and salary that given by The Air Navigation.
Powerpoint Slides
By : Kusumah Dewi Cytrawati
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar