Subject: Digitale Dokumenter

Project 1: Text
Air Trafc Controller
The worlds most stressful job?
Karl Mathias Moberg
2011
Digital Media Production
Faculty of Computer Sciences
stfold University College
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0.1 Introduction
With an average of more then 111,000 ights
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per day in the United States alone, an air
trafc controller (ATC) often has a responsibility for more lives in every shift - then a surgeon has
in his entire career. Therefore it is not that hard to imagine why the job as an air trafc controller
is considered one of the most stressful and one of the hardest job in the world. But a common
misconception is that all an Air Trafc Controller does is sit in a tower somewhere looking out a
window at the planes on the ground and close to the airport, when in fact most of the controllers
sit underground looking at monitors showing planes more then 500 km away from them.
Unfortunately even though aviation started over a hundred years ago, and in this day and
age of modern aviation - there are many differences around the world when it comes to aviation
and especially as an air trafc controller. In this paper, I intend to present both the basics of air
trafc control, and also why we need more standardized international agreements around the
world.

Note, since there are so many differences around the world when it comes to aviation and
Air Trafc control, many things in this paper is based on United States controllers, with FAA rules
and regulations.
Why more countries needs to recognize ICAO standards
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1
http://bit.ly/fj6BDE Average calculated from OPSNET count of total ights in the United States in 2010 (40,837,801)
0.2 Air Trafc Control basics
Air Trafc Controllers are the people responsible for getting an aircraft from airport A to airport B
safely without hitting other aircraft, or getting lost along the way. Their responsibilities varies from
position to position and they can be broken into three main groups.
The cab controllers are the controllers sitting in the control tower at the airport, and are
often the most easy to spot, and recognized controllers. They are the controllers who overlook
the movements at the airport and make sure the aircraft dont hit each other when they are on
the ground, or that an aircraft doesnt land on a runway where there already is an aircraft taking
off.
Terminal Radar Approach Control or TRACON controllers are often known as approach
or departure controllers. Controllers work usually at a location away from the airport with radar
screens of the airport and the surrounding area. Their responsibilities include safely overlook and
vector the aircraft from the moment it leaves the runway and up to often around 10,000-15,000 ft.
Their responsibilities does also include getting the aircrafts on the nal approach to the runway
where they are landing in a safe and sequenced manner, so that two aircraft are not on approach to
the same runway at once.
These controllers are often found in an external building around the airport, and there can
in most cases be more then one approach controller into the same airport, so that each controller
have their designated part of the airspace around the airport, for example - one controller
controls all aircraft coming in from the north, another controller directs all the aircraft from the
south, and a last controller has a tiny bit of airspace close to the runway where he ensures that
both the aircraft from the north and south get in to the same runway in an orderly fashion.
The last group of controllers are the Area Control Center, also known as center
controllers. These control centers are often responsible for very large portions of airspace above a
certain altitude. They make sure aircraft are on the correct route and are actually on and following
the route the are supposed to y and will provide corrections as needed. A center controller does
not typically provide TRACON services into airports, since most airport have their own approach
controllers, but in some cases of small airports a center controller can also provide the same
services as an approach controller.
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0.3 So how do they do it?
Many controllers describe what an ATC controller does as playing three dimensional chess
but with 150 ton chess pieces. There are very many factors and people that come into play when
an aircraft wants to go to airport A to airport B, not only do controllers have to worry about your
plane, but also the other aircraft at airport A, and where they want to go. But someone also have
to think about how long it is going to take you to get from A to B, and when you get to B, will
there be any other aircraft who wants to land at the same time? And will there be any aircraft
ying the same direction as you, but going from airport C to airport D that might be at the same
altitude?
Fortunately these problems are today handled by a massive supercomputer and experts at
the Air Trafc Control System Command Center
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or the European counterpart, Central Flow
Management Unit (CFMU)
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. A central repository to where airlines and pilots submits ight plans
often weeks or even moths in advance of a ight. Experts then analyze the route submitted, making
sure that the route they have submitted is the optimal route for this ight taking into
consideration all the other aircraft that can possibly come into conict with your ight. They also
nd a route based on airspace loads. If there are too many aircraft going to one place at once (for
example during the super bowl) aircraft going through that airspace, may have to be routed around
that airspace to lighten the controllers workload and be able to allow more aircraft to land at the
airport. When the route is nalized a computer then checks that at the requested departure time
there are no other ights departing out of the airport at that time giving the aircraft a so called
slot time - a time where the aircraft have to depart. If they miss the slot time, they may have to
way for another opening in the airspace, which may take up to an hour or more. The nal cruise
altitude is also checked so that no other aircraft could create a conict.
Before the aircraft leaves the gate, the pilots call up the cab controllers in the tower
requesting a clearance to y the submitted ight plan, depending on the weather, or delays they
might be given a different route or small amendments to their original requested plan, but they are
also assigned a unique four number code they enter so the controllers know who is who.
As soon as the aircraft is in the air, the TRACON controllers take over, they check that the
dot on their screen is actually the aircraft they are talking to, before they start turning the aircraft
towards points specied in the aircrafts ight plan. At the same time they start climbing the
aircrafts to a safe altitude both above ground and away from other aircraft.
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2
http://www.y.faa.gov/yfaa/usmap.jsp
3
http://www.cfmu.eurocontrol.int/cfmu/public/subsite_homepage/homepage.html
When the aircraft reach a certain spot on the radar or above a specied altitude, the
TRACON controller hands of the aircraft to the center controller who does not necessarily in the
same room, building or even country by digitally sending the dot on the radar to the next
controller. The center controller then has to look at all the surrounding aircraft and make sure that
the new aircraft will not create a conict if he climbs above his current altitude before he can give
the aircraft an higher altitude. Since every center controller has a limited airspace to avoid having a
too big of a workload the aircraft may be handed of to other center controllers. Then when the
plane approaches the destination airport, the center controller again has to check the surrounding
area to look for potential conicts of aircraft below, before he can issue a decent instruction.
Another hand off is made to a new TRACON controller responsible for the destination
airport, who will get the aircraft on to its nal approach course and nally to the tower controller
who is ultimately responsible for all the runway movements. By the time the aircraft parks at the
gate, many hundreds of people have been responsible for the safe journey for the aircraft.
0.4 The workday and stress
The airspace around the world never sleeps. Most major airports have the tower and
approach controller manned twenty four hours, 365 days a year in case of an emergency, so a
typical air trafc controller works shifts in 90 to 120 minute periods before a mandatory 30
minute break. Although no United States psychophysiological research have supported that the
duties an air trafc controller provides unusual amount of stress
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, research still supports that
productivity drastically lowers after two hours on shift. Another way of relieving stress, and keep
productivity up, is by swapping positions and when controllers work. A controller may work
multiple different positions in a day, this also avoids tunnel vision which can cause the brain to
focus only on one thing or part of the monitor, and completely forgetting other parts of the
screen. Moving around to other positions every 90 to 120 minutes forces the brain to refocus, and
change thus often avoiding focusing on one spot of the screen.
Depending on what position the controller is working, a typical approach controller may
handle between none, and fteen aircraft at one time depending on time of day, and typically in a
very limited airspace. Not only do the controllers have to keep the dots representing the aircraft
away from each other, but they often also need to stack on top of each other to provide enough
space to move the aircraft around, requiring the controllers to think in all three dimensions.
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4
http://www.faa.gov/library/reports/medical/oamtechreports/1980s/media/AM80-14.pdf
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Smith, R.C. (1985). Stress, anxiety, and the Air Tra!c Control Specialist: Some surprising conclusions from a decade of research. In C.D.
Spielberger, I.G. Sarason, & P.B. Defares (Eds.), Stress and Anxiety Vol. 9 (pp. 95-109). New York: Hemisphere Publishing.
The New York ARTCC is one of the worlds busiest airspaces. In 2010 they handled over
7500 aircraft
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every day, feeding aircraft into three major airports located in very close proximity.
With an average of almost two aircraft every minute, the controllers work with very small margins
error.
0.5 The problem
Even though air trafc today is very efcient and reliable, there are quite a few problems in
international aviation today. Where as large portions of the world adhere to the International Civil
Aviation Organization (ICAO) rules and procedures today, there are many countries that still does
not which poses a potential problem with the big increase in international ights.
The ICAO have put out recommended standard colors on runway and taxiway markings
which most countries around the world uses, that states that all runway markings should be in
white, and all taxiway markings should be in yellow so that a pilot easily can recognize just by
looking at the markings if he is on a runway or a taxiway. But in Norway the Norwegian aviation
authority (Luftfartsverket) has decided that all runway markings shall be in white - this to possibly
give better contrast against ice and heavy snow. This however has more then once created
potentially dangerous situations. Most recently a Aeroot aircraft took off at Norways largest
airport Gardermoen, from a taxiway instead of a runway
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. Although there were many different
reasons why this happened, the report concludes with the captain of the aircraft had noticed when
they landed that the runway markings were yellow, and so didnt doubt that the empty taxiway was
not a runway. Had Norway used the internationally recognized standard white which is used all
over the world except Norway, the incident could quite possibly have been avoided.
Although it might seem small and not important, the difference in phraseology or radio
telephony is huge. The same information can be transmitted in numerous of different ways around
the world. This is especially true when y in the United States compared to most of the other
world. The United States and the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) who has developed a parallel
radio telephony guide completely different from the ICAO standard which is used in the rest of
the world (with modications). This can create confusion for pilots ying in from countries outside
the United States. Fortunately, it seems like the FAA is starting to move in the right direction. On
september 30th 2010, the FAA started replacing some phraseology phrases with the ICAO
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http://bit.ly/fj6BDE Average calculated from OPSNET count of total ights in ZNY in 2010 (2,752,629)
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http://www.aibn.no/aviation/reports/2010-18-eng (Norwegian accident investigation board report on the Aeroot incident)
standard on the recommendation from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) with the
argument ... which potentially misleads pilots where only partial communications are heard.
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Not only does the phraseology differ, but many countries in the world does not use english
as the primary language of communication. Countries like China and a few southern-american
countries also do all communication in their native tongue. This does not only cause a problem for
non-native pilots who y into these countries, but also for pilots with bad english who y to
english-only speaking countries.
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0.6 The solution?
The very simple and naive solution to the problem of miscommunication and
misinterpretation in the aviation world, could very easily be solved by forcing countries into using
the ICAO standard, unfortunately it would be a very expensive solution to retrain most of the
controllers and pilots in the world to adhere to new standards.
A more realistic solution to the problem would probably be to work on the problem like
the FAA is currently doing, but working with the biggest problems, and addressing them one at a
time, and hopefully over time, more countries will start using ICAO standards to help evolve the
aviation which is growing at a huge rate. Eurocontrol estimates
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that by the year 2030 air travel
will have increased to 16.9 million ights in Europe i.e. 1.8 times more then in 2009! With this
enormous rate, if things continue like they are today, they will one day get out of hands when it is
so easy to misinterpret common phrases and terms in the aviation world.
So is it the worlds most stressful job? Psychiatrists differ on this question. Some agree,
some do not. There are no denitive reports that conclude that the job as an Air Trafc Controller
is more stressful then any other job in the world, but you cant forget that on a busy day a
controller may be responsible for more then 2,000 lives at once and one small mistake could lead
to a horric accident...
After the Aeroot incident at Oslo airport Gardermoen in 2010, the Norwegian aviation
authority (Luftfartsverket) has again agreed to revisit the practice of using yellow runway markings
instead of the internationally recognized white lines. They have to this day not yet released their
ndings.
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8
http://www.faa.gov/airports/runway_safety/news/current_events/lauw/ (FAA Change to Line up and wait)
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWDEIvjwaFU&fmt=18 (Air China ight 981 ying into New Yorks JFK airport)
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http://www.eurocontrol.int/corporate/gallery/content/public/docs/pdf/pressreleases/2011/110124-Long-Term-Forecast-nal.pdf