Can anyone provide more context on this ATC recording at Mesa Gateway, where ATC forced a PP to land?

SFDukie

SFDukie

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Seems this is an old incident, and I'd love to see more context.
real ATC
 
After struggling with the PoA search feature for a while, and the fact that a software change apparently broke some of my saved PoA links, I found our 2012 discussion on this:

www.pilotsofamerica.com

ATC: You WILL land here...

Found a recording on liveATC (attached) where the pilot wanted to depart the airspace and go to an airport that was 10nm north. Instead tower said that he does not like what she's doing (don't know what she was doing, can't tell from the recording) and told her to land. I never heard that...
www.pilotsofamerica.com www.pilotsofamerica.com
 
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THanks TCABM! and especially, Palm!

The avweb piece by Niles is written as if this is a recent occurrence, and it obviously isn't (this c172 was sold in 2013) Much to unpack.
 
I know but this guy has no flying experience at all. He's a menace to himself and everything else in the air... yes, birds too.
 
It sounds like the main issue was the pilot did not speak English well enough. We see that all the time in Florida too.

In her defense, I speak 3 languages, one of which I studied full time for 9 months at government expense, and I cannot imagine trying to operate in airspace using any of those languages.

The Avweb comments are a hoot. FAR 92.123b seems clear to me.
 
Maybe she was fatigued, or just having a bad day. It's hard to imagine how she could have gotten her private-pilot certificate if she had performed as badly on her checkride as that controller seemed to think she did on this flight. :dunno:

Neither of the recordings include whatever led up to the controller's decision to "make" her land at Gateway. The ground controller's comment that she should have familiarized herself with the field doesn't make sense, since she couldn't have known in advance that she was going to be ordered to land and taxi to parking there. (She was apparently based at Falcon Field.)
 
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Palmpilot said:
It's hard to imagine how she could have gotten her private-pilot certificate if she had performed as badly on her checkride as that controller seemed to think she did on this flight.
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It's possible with a pilot whose only towered airport experience was the minimum 61.109(a) requirement, i.e. one flight. I seem to recall one where a pilot gets totally confused because the tower assigns a right downwind - it had to be all wrong because the AFD says the runway is left traffic!

Here we have a 3-runway configuration. Could be really daunting to the unprepared. She obviously didn't watch this video:
 
midlifeflyer said:
It's possible with a pilot whose only towered airport experience was the minimum 61.109(a) requirement, i.e. one flight.
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I've seen other instructors teach this way and it makes me roll my eyes every time. Why give a f about proficiency when you can just do the bare minimum :rolleyes:
 
dmspilot said:
I've seen other instructors teach this way and it makes me roll my eyes every time. Why give a f about proficiency when you can just do the bare minimum :rolleyes:
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I always considered myself lucky. Although I trained at a quiet nontowered airport, my dual cross countries included three different towered airports, two of them ARSAs (Class C to the kiddies) and I added a fourth (another ARSA) on my long solo cross country.
 
midlifeflyer said:
It's possible with a pilot whose only towered airport experience was the minimum 61.109(a) requirement, i.e. one flight. I seem to recall one where a pilot gets totally confused because the tower assigns a right downwind - it had to be all wrong because the AFD says the runway is left traffic!

Here we have a 3-runway configuration. Could be really daunting to the unprepared. She obviously didn't watch this video:
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I don't think that series of videos existed when this incident happened (over twelve years ago).
 
A similar video was posted on another channel a couple of days later. I'm not sure where they got the flight track data. Do FlightAware recordings go back that far?

 
flyingron said:
I know but this guy has no flying experience at all. He's a menace to himself and everything else in the air... yes, birds too.
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i can draw some logical inferences as to this pilot's initial mistake(s), but I want to know what she did-did she bust the bravo, enter the falcon delta without establisghing 2 way comms, obstruct traffic inbound for landing at gateway?
Seems reasonable to assume she screwed up in ways that aren't apparent from the radio bits we heard. Seems to me that she wouold have been safer landing at a Falcon field,
Palmpilot said:
A similar video was posted on another channel a couple of days later. I'm not sure where they got the flight track data. Do FlightAware recordings go back that far?

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It’s so funny how there are at least 3! YT vids, and that recent a web piece- abd none of them mention that this incident happened around 2012.
I think that YTer just overlaid his inferences as to her location at the time of the radio calls.
 
Ed Haywood said:
It sounds like the main issue was the pilot did not speak English well enough. We see that all the time in Florida too.

In her defense, I speak 3 languages, one of which I studied full time for 9 months at government expense, and I cannot imagine trying to operate in airspace using any of those languages.

The Avweb comments are a hoot. FAR 92.123b seems clear to me.
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I don’t think anyone denies the fact pilots must comply with 91.123. The problem is after the fact. What reg / policy allows a controller to force a pilot to land at an unintended destination? None. “Exercising best judgment” would be a stretch in this case.
 
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SFDukie said:
It’s so funny how there are at least 3! YT vids, and that recent a web piece- abd none of them mention that this incident happened around 2012.
I think that YTer just overlaid his inferences as to her location at the time of the radio calls.
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I only found two. How did you find the others?
 
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