ATC Handling of Low-Fuel American Flight

The plane was out of Tulsa, and was northeast of Dallas. It
wanted to be on the ground "right away."

Unless you can show that ATC vectored the aircraft into a
standard 30 mile south right traffic for runway 35R, then
ATC did in fact get him on the ground "right away" faster
than if they had tried to move all the other aircraft out of
the way.

ATC has to clear not just the runway, but the airplanes that
have departed and are strung out on approach in case the
emergency aircraft needs to make a missed approach.

I'll wait for the FAA and NTSB to issue a report, the news
media is not a valid source, even if they have a "tape"
since they can and do leave many things out.



"Dan Luke" wrote in message
...
|
| "Steven P. McNicoll" wrote:
|
| ATC could have very well taken this as a declaration of
minimum fuel,
| which is NOT a declaration of emergency.
|
|
| "We need to declare an emergency," a pilot radioed air
traffic control. "We
| got a low fuel situation. We're not sure if it's a fuel
leak or what, but we
| need to get on the ground, right away, please."
|
| Right. Any controller who would treat this statement as
anything less than a
| declaration of a life-threatening emergency has his head
up and locked.
|
| What is the upside of denying the requested runway? Some
inconvenience is
| avoided.
|
| What is the downside? The plane doesn't make the field
and people die.
|
|
| --
| Dan
| C172RG at BFM
|
|