IT'S BREAK TIME AGAIN, SO ZACK AND THREE OF HIS COLLEAGUES -- Tom (Fitz) Fitzgerald, Bobby (Brains of Stone) Pryor and Bobby (Vic Zulu) Clarke -- climb into Fitz's Mitsubishi and start cruising around suburban Westbury, looking for fun. "We're known as the Boys," Zack explains one afternoon as they head down the town's commercial drag. "You're either in with the Boys or you're not."
The first stop is Dunkin' Donuts, of course, so that Zack can get more coffee and make fun of the clerk ("We handle 18 airplanes at a time -- this guy can't do four coffees! Ha, ha!"), and so that Fitz -- a barrel-chested, red-bearded former marine -- can squeal out of the parking lot, pretending to leave Zack behind. That's good for a few laughs. Then Zack and the Boys drive past the Westbury golf course, wait for someone to lift his club and blow the horn just as the poor sucker takes his swing. "I could drive around like this all day," Zack says, roaring with laughter. "That's one thing about being an air traffic controller -- you don't have to act your age."
Few do. Consider the controller who sent all his departures on alternate climb-out routes so their jet engines wouldn't drown out his sister's barbecue in Queens; or the controller who overheard an El Al pilot welcoming his passengers on board for their flight to Tel Aviv, then got all the other pilots on his frequency to order rum and Coke, please, and maybe a bag of those little pretzels, using Israeli accents; or the controller, a serious Rangers fan, who took the plane carrying the wives of the Vancouver Canucks and made them circle in the sky so they wouldn't land in time to see their husbands play for the Stanley Cup Championship.
For a job with few educational requirements, air traffic control offers power, freedom and enviable pay -- the average base salary at the TRACON is a sweet $72,000. But in other respects, controllers are -- and have always been -- treated like hired help. They are Government employees forbidden by law to strike (and on April 1, depending on the outcome of Congressional legislation, they may lose their right to form a union). They must drop everything to work overtime, no matter what they had planned with the wife and kids. And as soon as they sit down at the scopes, they are at the mercy of lousy equipment, absent-minded pilots, reckless colleagues, bad weather or maybe just the traffic getting heavier and heavier, like a hand constantly pushing at them from behind.
And every year as the traffic, the equipment and the hours get worse, so, too, does the threat of operational errors -- the ultimate emblem of a controller's lack of control -- which the FAA defines as a loss of the requisite separation between two planes, but is more terrifyingly known as a "near midair collision." In 1994, operational errors at the TRACON jumped threefold, from 16 to 50, most of them in the Newark sector. Operational errors occur for many reasons -- a pilot turning his plane too slowly or a radar screen going dark. All are stressful, but none more than the error judged to be a controller's fault. That, in the local argot, is called a "deal." Three deals within two and a half years means the controller is pulled off the scopes, sent back to the lab simulator for retraining and must get recertified, a process that can go on for months.
At the Newark sector, there's actually a deal a day -- sometimes a deal an hour -- but unless a pilot or supervisor files a complaint with the FAA within 15 days, the incident escapes inquiry; controllers, spotting a deal on their scopes, just look around to see if they were caught. "We don't get loud about it here," says one controller. Jughead's one deal -- a loss of separation that, he insists, occurred because a pilot turned his plane too slowly -- was caught only because the then-head of the New York TRACON happened to run into that same pilot. The pilot mentioned a close call he'd had, the TRACON manager promised to look into it and did so -- on the 14th day. "Everybody was howling," Jughead says, still peeved at his luck. "He looks into it on the 14th day, and I have to eat the deal! I don't think that has ever happened in the history of the FAA!"
Eating a deal is not a tasty experience. If it's caught immediately, the controller is pulled off the scopes and sent "downstairs," where TRACON managers examine the radar and radio data to determine whether the pilot or the controller is at fault. "It's always them against you -- they'll use any little mistake against you," complains Graz. "That's why I always tell my trainees, C.Y.A." He smiles apologetically. "Cover Your . . . Rear End."
Zack, for his part, has little patience with by-the-book controlling, considering it his right -- by dint of his talents and the strain the FAA puts on them -- to have some fun on the scopes. He regularly flirts with female pilots, picks fights with unresponsive captains with Southern accents -- "Hey, you're in New York buddy! I need you to descend in a New York minute, not a hillbilly minute!" But Zack is no stranger to the terrors of a bad deal himself. A few years ago, he assigned the wrong flight code to a small propeller plane, which meant that his radar scope was misrepresenting the prop's actual location in the sky. Zack didn't know that, however, so he vectored the pilot directly into a line of oncoming jets. Boom -- Zack had one near midair collision. Frantic, Zack descended the prop away from the jets and into the path of another propeller plane. Boom -- another near midair collision. Flailing helplessly, Zack had racked up two near midair collisions in less than 30 seconds. "I'm not one to give up," he sighs. "But after that, I told my supe, 'Man, you better get me off this thing right now.' "
Over time, the constant threat of deals preys upon a controller's sanity, and for a few years the TRACON even referred their shaken employees to a nearby psychiatrist, who possessed a relaxed couchside manner, listened thoughtfully and ended most sessions by pulling out his prescription pad. "Maybe a little something to help you sleep?" But what's short-term therapy going to do when the chaos in a controller's head is merely the normal human reflection of the chaos in the skies?
Recently, Zack was sitting next to a colleague -- let's call him Wayne -- who had been working too much traffic for too many years and was nearing the end of the line. When Zack saw that he and Wayne had planes heading toward each other at 4,000 feet, he called out, "Which way's your guy going?" Wayne said nothing.
"Tell me which way you're gonna turn him," Zack demanded, and still Wayne was silent.
"Hey, descend your guy to 3,000!" Zack yelled as Wayne started shaking at the scope. "Come on, Wayne, don't mess around!"
"I don't give a damn what happens to them!" said the trembling Wayne.
"Jesus! Descend your --."
"Don't care!"
And the planes roared past each other, missing by less than 500 feet. Wayne took a medical leave, went into counseling, but for months couldn't come near the TRACON. "He just went onto the dark side, that guy," Zack says.
Alas, Wayne is not alone. Several years ago, another controller was working Newark departures. The planes were shooting off the runway like a burst of startled pigeons, the controller scrambling to keep them separated as they climbed into the sky. At some point he reached saturation, couldn't take another plane entering his airspace. He froze at his scope, actually moved his cursor to each blip and deleted them from his radar screen. Then he turned to his supervisor and announced: "No more planes. Time to get off." He, too, was sent to counseling, and after a couple of months tried to return, but he could never bring himself to work traffic again. A new nickname entered the lexicon: Dr. Freeze.
So the question that haunts the Newark controllers is: Who will be the next Wayne, the next Dr. Freeze? Who is so burned out -- "toasted," "a crispy critter" -- that he's destined to go down the pipes?
Graz, his colleagues agree, could go at any time. He's been working Newark traffic the longest, never had the proper appetite for fear and recently was turned down for his fifth management bid at the TRACON. "Yeah, he's got the short fuse now," Fitz warns.
"We're trying to get him off the boards before it happens," Zack says gravely.
Jughead is a supremely gifted controller, but Zack, for one, argues that he's practically asking for it -- what with his 318 overtime hours and casual attitude, like a young athlete who hurls his body around, certain that the ravages of time will never take their toll. "Has he told you about the Big Sky Theory?" Zack says. "You know, 'Don't worry, they're not going to hit'? Man, that's a crazy saying. You got to worry."
As for Zack -- well, Zack believes that as long as he does worry, sitting in front of his radar scope and chewing his cuticles, like the glass itself is about to shatter in his face, he'll be all right: "The strong survive," he declares.
In the TRACON’s other sectors, when a controller goes down the pipes, his colleagues often back away and avert their eyes, as if at the scene of an ugly accident. But in the Newark sector, where the threat of spectacular flame-out is as inescapable as the overtime and the greasy Chinese food, the controllers not only prepare for it but participate in it -- eagerly -- as if they were performing some ritual sacrifice. For a while, the controllers even had a doll, shaped like a witch, that they stowed in the panel above the intimidating Newark final scope. When someone went down the pipes on final, the controllers would pull a switch and down came the witch on a string. All the controllers would circle around the victim, cackling like the Wicked Witch of the West, jeering, "You're going down!" and maybe pinching him from behind as he went down in flames.
Because the controllers' code of conduct permits no show of weakness or fear, sometimes this hazing ritual has a salutary effect. A few days ago, Fitz -- who by his own admission tends to struggle on the scopes -- was working a busy final sequence. The planes were streaming into his airspace one after another and, though he was trying to maintain three-mile separation, he was feeding the planes to the Newark tower for landing with too little room in between. If one plane follows another too closely, the one in front won't have time to land and taxi off the runway before the second is ready to touch down, and that second plane will have to "go around" -- abort its landing at the last possible moment and circle back for another attempt. The tower controller called Fitz over the intercom to complain.
"How about you try doing your job!" Fitz yelled back, knowing of course the man was right. Then Fitz shouted over to his supervisor: "I suggest you call the tower and tell that guy to go [expletive] himself." Then, when his supervisor told Fitz to just calm down: "I'm goddamned [expletive]!!"
Sensing a potential flame-out, several controllers gathered behind Fitz: "Yeah, Fitzie, way to keep those emotions in check!"
"You want us to send Zack over to the tower to take that guy out?"
One guy reached for the intercom, pretending to be the tower controller: "Hey, Newark, could you send us some more planes?"
That pushed Fitz over the edge. He started cursing, thrashing about in front of his scope and screaming at the pilots: "Reduce speed now to 180 knots!" "Expedite descent to 3,000!" "Turn right heading 090 degrees, and give me a good rate on that!" Silent now, the other controllers exchanged looks. Fitz was controlling those 747's like a lion tamer with his chair. He had a perfect three-mile final. For tonight at least, he was a certified Man of Steel.
BY 6:30 P.M., THE HOLIDAY traffic is reaching an absurd frenzy, the blips crawling around the controllers' radar scopes like swarms of angry ants -- Newark and Teterboro traffic crisscrossing the airspace west of the Hudson, and Newark and La Guardia jets whizzing past each other over the river. The scopes look so cluttered, in fact, that controllers are having trouble distinguishing one blip from another, and when the Caca goes off, it takes them a second just to figure out which planes are in conflict. It's one of those days when the equipment always seems to go haywire: real planes vanish off the scope; "ghost returns" of planes appear 50 miles from where they ought to be, or the entire scope goes blank, leaving controllers scurrying around the darkened operations room with their flight strips, trying to keep a mental picture of where their planes are headed.
Zack, watching with pent-up rage as the controller next to him keeps invading his airspace, rises halfway to his feet, as if he's going to put his fist down the man's throat. The Wheel rushes over to hold Zack back.
"This guy," Zack sputters. "He keeps --."
"Yeah, you're right," The Wheel reassures him, pressing down on Zack's shoulder. "You're absolutely right."
"I'm just saying --."
"Hey, I know. We been working together a long time, right?" And The Wheel reaches out to shake Zack's hand, which temporarily calms him down. But as soon as he has extinguished that fire, The Wheel sees another: Joe Jorge, the trainee locked in mortal combat with the mighty Newark final scope, is having some sort of problem communicating with his pilots. The Wheel runs over to investigate.
Jorge has seven jets flying east toward the Hudson River, which he must turn south for their final descent to the airport. But when he tries to reach the aircraft in front, he gets no response. Jorge repeats his command. Again, no response. Now Jorge is several beats behind, and as he tries to catch up, other pilots -- wondering why they haven't received their turn-and-descend orders -- start contacting the TRACON. Because the FAA's creaky radio technology can handle only one transmission at a time, the incoming calls are preventing Jorge from issuing the commands they need.
"Everybody stand by!" Jorge barks. "US Air 512 turn right heading 160."
No response.
"US Air 512 turn right heading 160."
No response. What the hell is going on?
As The Wheel yells up to the traffic-management podium, ordering a hold on all new planes heading toward Newark, Jorge looks frantically toward his instructor, Steve Marotta, who has been standing by his side. "O.K., everybody, listen up, please," Marotta announces, taking over the mike. Twice Marotta gives orders to the US Air pilot, and twice he gets no response. Then three more pilots -- starting to panic as they race toward the west bank of the Hudson and all the La Guardia traffic over the river -- try contacting the TRACON, blocking Marotta.
"Nobody check in on the frequency please," Marotta says, moisture forming on his brow. "Stand by everybody."
While Jorge sits mute and helpless, Marotta spits out a new set of commands. "You're very weak, New York," one pilot calls back.
That's when they realize what the problem is: their own radio isn't working properly; half of Marotta's commands aren't even leaving the building. They're losing their grip on the jets.
With his primary radio broken, Marotta punches a button that sends his voice onto a backup frequency. But when he tries to transmit over that one, a pilot calls back: "Was that heading 130? We can barely hear you, New York," and the controllers realize, to their horror, that their backup radio is failing, too.
Zack and the other controllers look down the row of radar scopes at Jorge, fairly shaking in his chair, and Marotta, leaning nervously toward the scope. Could two guys go down the pipes together?
Marotta and Jorge glance at each other. When they look back at the scope, they see a TWA jet, at 5,000 feet, heading east toward the Hudson. Meanwhile, an American Airlines jet, having departed from La Guardia, now at 4,000 feet, is climbing west straight into the path of the TWA. The two planes are three miles apart when the controllers spot them, but with each jet converging on the other at 300 miles an hour, Marotta calculates they'll be nose-to-nose over the river in 30 seconds.
"TWA 32, turn right heading 220," Marotta says, trying to betray no fear. "Good rate of turn, please."
"Unreadable," the pilot calls back.
"TWA 32, turn right heading 220," Marotta repeats swiftly.
"Unreadable."
"No response. Jesus!" Marotta thrusts his head toward the radar scope and realizes he no longer has time to turn the TWA jet to the right.
"TWA 32, turn left, turn left heading 360 now. Turn left to 360!"
Jorge and Marotta take in breath, their eyes grow wide and their stomachs give way to that horrible bottomless falling feeling of losing all control. Then, over the crackling backup frequency, comes a faint "Roger" and they watch as the TWA blip moves left and away.
Suddenly Zack's voice comes booming over the P.A. system: "No chance, rookie! You got no chance!" While Marotta switches to yet another frequency -- this one actually works -- and starts bringing the line of jets back under control, Zack explodes over the intercom: "It's all Jorge's fault! I could eat and work through a frequency outage like that! But this guy's jumpin' up and down! That's the difference in experience level! Ha! You should have given the pilots a cup with a string! Woulda worked better than this goddamned equipment!"
As soon as Marotta has the jets back on course -- miraculously, though half a dozen planes have strayed, only the TWA is forced to circle and land after the others -- The Wheel puts a new controller in to relieve Jorge and Marotta. The two shaken controllers remove their headsets, laughing hysterically and backing away from the Newark final scope as if they can hear it ticking.
"I'm a little moist," Jorge admits, trying to keep himself from trembling. "Not wet, but moist." Marotta, a veteran of countless equipment failures, pats the rookie's back. "Hopefully you got your plastic underwear on."
Quickly, Marotta and Jorge are joined by Zack and a gang of other controllers, furious as always with the FAA "You know why that failed?" says The Wheel. "This stuff is 20 years old!"
"And the whole system is predicated on flawless equipment," says Marotta. "One glitch, and in 30 seconds those planes are together!"
"I'm writing this goddamned thing up," one of them declares, referring to the Unsafe Conditions Reports the controllers file constantly to get the FAA's attention. "Goddamned bastards!"