NATCA Bookshelf

��� O N-THE - JOBPerspec ti ve Superstorm Sandy Bill McLoughlin, Facility Representative, LaGuardia Tower (LGA) ���The hurricane had a major impact at LaGuardia. Prior to the storm, the FAA had decided to start releasing personnel and reduce staffing, as we knew the airport would be closed. NATCA members who lived close by immediately volunteered to remain and man the operation to ensure the safety of the facility/operation and their coworkers who lived farther away. Those remaining worked long shifts with quick turnarounds to keep constant staffing. Local NATCA representatives voluntarily cancelled collateral duties and union details to return to the facility and relieve those who stayed. First-person accounts of the swift action & teamwork of air traffic control ���Their duties included working LGA Class Bravo airspace to assist Coast Guard aircraft, NYC police aviation units and search and rescue aircraft, if necessary. Other duties were communicating with and assisting Port Authority operations, FAA tech ops personnel, disseminating vital weather information, forwarding visual weather observations to the airport weather unit and coordinating with the FAA Systems Command Center. They also kept a record of all airport operations and pertinent information. ���The storm left the airport half-submerged, making any arrivals or departures impossible. A loose barge crashed into the Runway 22 deck, severing optic transfer cables and power lines. This resulted in a loss of localizer equipment and the control tower's main transmitter site causing us to lose all frequencies. The controllers reverted to using hand-held transceivers to restore communications. In addition to that, we lost the VOR, runway and approach lighting and many other navigational aids. ���Many thanks to all the dedicated aviation professionals in New York City who went above and beyond the call of duty to provide any services possible and ultimately restore the system to full operation as soon as they could.��� Mike Brennan, Facility Representative, Teterboro Tower (TEB) ���Sandy had a pretty big impact on TEB. During the storm and continuing through that week, we ran skeleton crews. I worked from Monday (Oct. 29) morning at 7 a.m. through 8 a.m. Tuesday. It was myself, one other controller ��� Khair Carvan ��� and one FLM. As the storm intensified, we made the decision to tell the midnight crew to stay home. We didn't want to chance having our people on the roads during the storm. �� ���We evacuated the tower sometime around 8:30 p.m. Monday due to the winds. It was intense. The highest wind gust I saw was 64 knots. The altimeter dropped to 28.58. There were transformers exploding as far as the eye could see on a pretty consistent basis for a few hours. We had lots of equipment outages, and the tower power surged on multiple occasions. Before we evacuated, the tower was shaking. We were concerned that the east-facing windows would blow out. They were making some loud noises, and we didn't feel safe staying in the cab. We went to ATC Zero until about 1 a.m., then once the wind died down, we returned upstairs. ���With no planes to handle, we were really working with the Port Authority to stay up to date on the airport status. We were also involved in many telcons to plan as much as we could along with making phone calls to our membership telling people to stay safe and check in with the facility when they could. ���We continued through the week staffed with two CPCs per shift. This was accomplished by a combination of working scheduled shifts as well as overtime. Gerald Quaye, Christine Denham DeFrank, Carlos Wyre and Robert Gambale all volunteered and got this done. The effort and willingness of the members to staff the facility was outstanding. Management came through as well. We collaborated to keep the airport staffed and our members as safe as possible.��� 4 Air Traffic Controller Fall 2012

• Cover