FS controller fired for gross incompetence

[Guest dugan1]

Lawsuit looms for Orlando sim-ATC employee. Commercial sim-pilot suspended and under investigation.July 7, 2004, Orlando --Simulated pilot Dugan Sims lies in critical condition in an Orlando hospital, his single-engine aircraft lies in a mangled heap at the end of Orlando International Airport's runway 17R, and simulated air traffic controller Sam Sims (no relation) has lost his job and faces a lawsuit this morning after a tragic accident resulting from what the controller's supervisor, Slim Sims (no relation) is calling "one of the worst examples of controller negligence and incompetence in memory.""I was on final approach and cleared to land," said the sim-pilot through the mask that forms the only opening in his body cast, "I was only a couple hundred feet up, almost to the runway itself. The sim-controller said, 'Mooney two one golf, go around.' I had about two seconds to react and had just begun to slow my descent when suddenly I heard the tremendous 'WHOOSH' of jet engines and a commercial 737 or 747 or something came zooming over my right shoulder, missing me by, I'd guess less than 50 feet."For a second, I thought 'Officer, he was moving so fast I couldn't get his license number,' but the next second it was not humorous at all. The turbulence in the jet's wake caught my little plane and tossed it like a dry leaf. I was too low to recover. I said a quick prayer, and the last thing I remember was darkness outside the window and an attitude indicator that was all brown."Simon Sims (no relation), the sim-pilot's simulated doctor, is hopeful that he will survive and eventually make a full recovery.Simulated FAA officials report that the jet's pilot has been temporarily suspended and is under investigation as well, though the identity of the pilot and the airline that owns the jet have not yet been released by sim-authorities....story filed by Simone Sims (no relation, of course).(This story is for entertainment purposes only. Any resemblance to actual people, places, organizations, or events is merely simulated.)

[Guest contrail]

FS9 clears you to land.........http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/83131.jpg

[Guest MarkG]

It's lucky there's no Sim FAA or I'd have lost my sim-license long ago: 'what do you mean, I'm not supposed to do Mach 3 at 5,000 feet?' :).

[Guest Philip Olson]

It seems that sim ATC controllers world wide need to be fired and jailed! This just in....... July 7, 2004, Innsbruck-- Simulated Lufthansa flight 737 from Munich to Innsbruck was a prefect flight according to pilot Philip Olson, that is until the last seconds before touch down. Piloting his PMDG 737-700 with almost a full load of passengers going on holiday, Mr. Olson reported broken clouds and 10 mile visibility during the flight, almost perfect weather for this flight. "I was cleared to land and perhaps 100 feet off the runway when I was ordered to go around" said Mr. Olson " I punched the TOGA button and started to bring the plane up when all of a sudden a 757 comes down on top of me and slams my aircraft to the runway." "At that time the 757 was ordered to go around and he pulled up but due to the extra speed I had my aircraft bounced off the runway and apparently the left side and front landing gear had collapsed, we skidded down the runway and off the other end until the plane fell into a bit of a ravine." Most of the planes occupants were injured although no deaths were reported. After the crash inspection of the 737-700 showed the vertical stabilizer completely sheared from the plane and all of the landing gear collapsed. Currently there is no information regarding the condition or the where abouts of the 757. An investigation is currently under way. As stated in the previous post, this story is for entertainment purposes only. Any resemblance to actual people, places, organizations, or events is simulated. In other words I was playing a game people! :-)Take care and beware ATC!Philip Olsonhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg

[Guest Charlie Hall]

:) Hope that's not as real as it gets!

[Guest comradesniper]

Landmark 747 pilot sacked over gross neglegenceToday, a terrible accident occured at Londons Heathrow airport (EGLL). a Northwind Air Cargo DeHavilland Dash 7 (G-REDH) had just completed a marathon cargo run from Moscows Domodedovo airport, totalling around 1800nm, at around 7 hours in the air.The weather was clear apart from a few broken clouds. there was heavy traffic at heathrow, and G-REDH had just touched down and was slowly taxiing towards a runway exit. Then, a sudden cry came out from the controller "Landmark 463, go around". then, another cry "Landmark 463, you were not cleared to land". the pilot of the Dash 7 looked out to his left-rear and saw a Boeing 747 bearing down on him. The Dash 7 had no time to move, and was squashed like a bug under the 747, killing the crew of the Dash 7.This record attempt at flying non-stop from Moscow to Heathrow came to a sad end.The conrtoller was questioned, but was later cleared of responsibility, after it was found that the 747 was given ample time and altitude to go around.

[Guest dugan1]

Now that's fascinating.I had posted the original "news" story as a way of saying "Here's another example of how Microsoft seems to have overlooked some of the contingencies in setting up the ATC system in FS9." Or more accurately, perhaps it's just that MS didn't design the ATC system to handle all the traffic we'd throw at it with add-ons.But your story implies that a MS AI plane deliberately ignored ATC instructions. How could that be the result of something the MS programmers didn't consider? Do you suppose they programmed in even a random chance that AI aircraft might behave "with a mind of its own"?Using ctrl-W the other day I watched a default AI Cessna make a very steep approach at a small airport and make a hard, bouncing landing. I assume this landing was designed with the "errors" built in, to simulate a student pilot, and I consider it a nice touch. So maybe I could also imagine MS building in the ability for AI GA pilots to sometimes ignore ATC. But to go so far as giving AI 747 pilots the "discretion" to disregard ATC instructions seems almost bizarre.Or am I missing something? Is there a way this could have happened without MS deliberately allowing AI aircraft to disregard ATC instructions?

[Guest comradesniper]

yup, this really happened with default aircraft.i just started to turn into a taxiway when "Landmark you were not cleared to land" and BOOM. :( 7 hours flying wasted.i have seen the AI do some weird things tho. like a cessna seemed to misjudge an approach in bad weather and slammed into the ground 100 yards before the runway. and dont get me started about the ATC constantly calling an AI craft to get back to altitude. its like the plane ignored them. "*insert name here*, you are 500 below altitude. please climb and maintain FL350" when said again and again gets quite annoying.

[Guest ssurjap]

I don't know whether this is real or not, but here's an oldie but goodie:SUBJ: "The Student Pilot"Author UnknownContributed to HUmourNet by Mark McCannFederal Aviation AdministrationWashington, D.C.Gentlemen:I was asked to make a written statement concerning certain eventsthat occurred yesterday. First of all, I would like to thank thatvery nice FAA man who took my student pilot's license and told meI wouldn't need it any more. I guess that means that you'regiving me my full-fledged pilot's license. You should watch thatfellow though, after I told him all of this he seemed quitenervous and his hand was shaking. Anyway, here is what happened.The weather had been kind of bad since last week, when I soloed.But on the day in question I was not about to let low ceilings andvisibility and a slight freezing drizzle, deter me from anotherexciting experience at the controls of an airplane. I was prettyproud of my accomplishment, and I had invited my neighbour to gowith me since I planned to fly to a town about two hundred milesaway where I knew of an excellent restaurant that servedabsolutely wonderful charbroiled steaks and the greatest martinis.On the way to the airport my neighbour was a little concernedabout the weather, but I assured him once again about the steaksand martinis that we would soon be enjoying and he seemed muchhappier.When we arrived at the airport the freezing drizzle had stopped,as I already knew from my ground school meteorology it would.There were only a few snowflakes. I checked the weather and I wasassured that it was solid IFR. I was delighted. But when Italked to the local operator, I found out that my regular airplane, a Piper J-3 Cub, was down for repairs. You could imagine my disappointment. Just then a friendly, intelligent lineboy suggested that I take another airplane, which I immediatelysaw was very sleek and looked much easier to fly. I think that hecalled it an Aztec C, also made by Piper. It didn't have a tailwheel, but I didn't say anything because I was in a hurry. Oh yes,it had a spare engine for some reason.We climbed in and I began looking for an ignition switch. Now, Idon't want to get anyone in trouble, but it shouldn't be necessaryto get the airplane manual just to find out how to start anairplane. That's ridiculous. I never saw so many dials andneedles and knobs, handles and switches. As we both know,confidentially, they have simplified this in the J-3 Cub. Iforgot to mention that I did file a flight plan, and those peoplewere so nice. When I told them I was flying an Aztec, they saidit was all right to go direct via Victor-435, a localsuperhighway, all the way. These fellows deserve a lot of credit.They told me a lot of other things too, but everybody has problemswith red tape.The take-off was one of my best and I carefully left the patternjust the way the book says it should be done. The tower operatortold me to contact Departure Control Radar, but that seemed kindof silly since I knew where I was going. There must have beensome kind of emergency because, all of a sudden, a lot of airlinepilots began yelling at the same time and made such a racket thatI just turned off the radio. You'd think that those professionalswould be better trained. Anyway, I climbed up into a few littleflat clouds, cumulus type, at three hundred feet, but Highway 435was right under me and, since I knew it was straight east to thetown where we were going to have drinks and dinner, I just went onup into the solid overcast. After all, it was snowing so hard bynow that it was a waste of time to watch the ground. This was abad thing to do, I realized. My neighbour undoubtedly wanted tosee the scenery, especially the mountains all around us, buteverybody has to be disappointed sometime and we pilots have tomake the best of it, don't we?It was pretty smooth flying and, except for the ice that seemed tobe forming here and there, especially on the windshield, therewasn't much to see. I will say that I handled the controls quiteeasily for a pilot with only six hours. My computer and pencilsfell out of my shirt pocket once in a while, but these phenomenasometimes occur, I am told. I don't expect you to believe this,but my pocket watch was standing straight up on its chain. Thatwas pretty funny and I asked my neighbour to look but he just keptstaring straight ahead with sort of a glassy look in his eyes andI figured that he was afraid of heights like all non-pilots are.By the way, something was wrong with the altimeter, it keptwinding and unwinding all the time.Finally, I decided we had flown about long enough to be where wewere going, since I had worked it out on the computer. I am awhiz at that computer, but something must have gone wrong with itsince when I came down to look for the airport, there wasn'tanything there except mountains. These weather people sure hadbeen wrong, too. It was real marginal conditions with a ceilingof about one hundred feet. You just can't trust anybody in thisbusiness except yourself, right? Why, there were eventhunderstorms going on with occasional bolts of lightning. Idecided that my neighbour should see how beautiful it was and theway it seemed to turn that fog all yellow, but I guess he wasasleep, having gotten over his fear of heights, and I didn't wantto wake him up. Anyway, just then an emergency occurred becausethe engine quit. It really didn't worry me since I had just readthe manual and I knew right where the other ignition switch was. Ijust fired up the other engine and we kept right on going. Thisbusiness of having two engines is really a safety factor. If onequits the other is right there ready to go. Maybe all airplanesshould have two engines. You might look into this.As pilot in command, I take my responsibilities very seriously. Itwas apparent that I would have to go down lower and keep a sharpeye in such bad weather. I was glad my neighbour was asleepbecause it was pretty dark under the clouds and if it hadn't beenfor the lightning flashes it would have been hard to navigate.Also, it was hard to read road signs through the ice on thewindshield. Several cars ran off the road when we passed and youcan sure see what they mean about flying being a lot safer thandriving.To make a long story short, I finally spotted an airport that Iknew right away was pretty close to town and, since we werealready late for cocktails and dinner, I decided to land there. Itwas an Air Force Base so I knew it had plenty of runway and Icould already see a lot of coloured lights flashing in the controltower so I knew that we were welcome. Somebody had told me thatyou could always talk to these military people on theinternational emergency frequency, so I tried it but you wouldn'tbelieve the language that I heard. These people ought to bestraightened out by somebody and I would like to complain as ataxpayer. Evidently, they were expecting somebody to come in andland because they kept talking about some stupid SOB up in thatfog. I wanted to be helpful, so I landed on the ramp to be out ofthe way in case that other fellow needed the runway. A lot ofpeople came running out waving at us. It was pretty evident thatthey had never seen an Aztec C before. One fellow, some generalwith a pretty nasty temper, was real mad about something. I triedto explain to him in a reasonable manner that I didn't think thetower operator should be swearing at that guy up there, but hisface was so red that I think he must have a drinking problem.Well, that's about all. I caught a bus back home because theweather really got bad, but my neighbour stayed at the hospitalthere. He can't make a statement yet because he's still not awake.Poor fellow, he must have the flu, or something.Let me know if you need anything else, and please send my newlicense airmail, special delivery.Very truly yours,/s/

[Guest comradesniper]

LOLi sure as hell hope that WASNT real... but it sounds like my first flight in FS... in a 747... (no wonder i didnt get my ATP license)

[Guest jdu]

:-lol!

[Guest jdu]

These charges would be on my sim-record-Broke the sound barrier while between high-rise buildings.Rolled a 747 with the 'fasten seat-belt' sign off.Tried to take off in a 737 while a 747 had just touched down.Tried to takeoff and fly a 737 in 0 visibility 100mph crosswind snowstormand worst of all-ECT.....:-hah