I-Team Extras: The Unsafe Skies Over South Florida
Sep 28, 2009 10:17 pm US/Eastern
I-Team: Behind The Scenes At MIA's Control Tower
MIAMI (CBS4) ―
Torrential downpours, gusty winds and sporadic lightning are typical afternoon fare during South Florida's steamy summers. While the conditions can be hazardous for those who venture out onto the roads in the rain, they can be even worse for those who take to the air.
"It probably one of the biggest challenges that we face in South Florida," said Juan Fuentes, the Tower Facility Manager at Miami International Airport. "It is working and delaying around the weather especially this time working around the weather this time (summer) of year."
For the first time ever,
CBS4's I-Team cameras were allowed to go behind the scenes at Miami International Airport's air control tower's most critical areas during a crisis to see how the controllers keep the skies over South Florida safe. The Federal Aviation Administration allowed
CBS4 I-Team photographer John DuMontelle and
investigator Stephen Stock access to the control tower over a series of months during heavy thunderstorms. At first, the FAA and air traffic controllers were reluctant to allow CBS4 to videotape what really happens in the control tower during times of tension. But they finally agreed.
The reason: they wanted to give air travelers a more realistic picture about what goes on during times of most extreme stress. They also wanted air travelers to know exactly what goes on in the aviation control facilities in South Florida to keep travelers safe and keep the planes flying on time even if it might mean delays and hassles at the airport gates.
"Papa tango" comes the call from the control tower.
From inside the facility, operators look out at rain clouds so thick they seem more like the inside of a cloud bank than the top of the tall concrete tower.
"40, landing off your left side," another controller warns an incoming airplane.
Peering through the rain streaked windows you can barely make out huge 75 ton 150 foot long airplanes only hundreds of feet away.
"Taxi via whiskey," goes another controller looking through the clouds.
The ghost planes are barely visible in the thick rain. The same planes appear as colorful dots on the radar scopes inside the control room and downstairs in the radar room where there are no windows.
"Your sequence?" asks another controller of one of the pilots of a "ghost plane" coming in to land.
To the untrained eye, the radar screens may look like video games, but it doesn't get anymore real than this. Controllers know juggling of all the flights on the screen, which appear as dots with moving numbers by them, means juggling life and death.
"Change roaming 1-2. Hold tight, 1-2," goes out yet another air controller's call. The controllers' voice comes out crisp, clear and firm.
"Some people say, you know, it's like changing the wheel as the car is moving," said Fuentes.
Heavy thunderstorms don't stop the air traffic in South Florida skies but they can make an air controller's job much more challenging.
"Okay, we're still east, they don't like this weather just left," said one controller to another as airplanes entered another's airspace to avoid the bad weather cells.
"The runways are wet. Really?" said one controller while juggling three different airplanes. "I think I can get us back on (runway) 9 though."
Unlike a video game, the air controllers know the lives of thousands of air travelers depend on their performance.
"What's very important is keeping order in the skies," said air traffic controller James Mariniti.
Mariniti, who is also president of the local Air Traffic Controllers' Union, compares it not only to a video game but also a thinking person's game.
"It's like a chess game," Mariniti said. "You're constantly running away from the weather. And your pieces are the airplanes. And you have to keep them away from that weather."
Unlike your ordinary two dimensional chess game, this one is three dimensional, like the one played on the old Star Trek TV series.
"When directing planes during weather it's very tactical," said Juan Fuentes. "It's very dynamic and everything that we do has to happen at the right time."
But even behind the scenes, you'd probably never know things were out of the ordinary. That's how good these controllers are. They keep their emotions and the tension of the moment in check.
"When the weather moves in everyone is in everyone else's airspace," said Mariniti. "And we all have to 'adjust' on the fly.
"If we're unable to land at Miami, for example, we'll hold for 10 to 20 minutes or something to that effect," said Fuentes. "And if we're unable to land they'll have predetermined places they can go. In fact we have had many instances in which aircraft that was scheduled to land in Miami has had to divert to Fort Lauderdale and vice versa."
"(In good weather) You're able to descend to a certain altitude in your airspace," said Mariniti. "Now (with bad weather) someone else is using that airspace and you have to work very closely together. In Miami's air control, they are the best (at doing that)."
In the last year there were 17,643 delays at South Florida's two major airports; Miami International and Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International. That's actually an improvement from the year before when there were a total of 21,857 delays.
Even with all the challenges presented by bad weather, according to the FAA's own numbers severe thunderstorms account for less than half of all flight delays here in South Florida. In the last year, from June 2008 through July, 2009, the last month FAA flight delay data is available, at Miami International Airport 7,508 flights or 40.37% of all delays were because of severe weather. At Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport 5,210 flights or 32.01% of all delays were due to severe weather.
According to FAA data, the worst months to fly into South Florida airports due to extreme weather are June and July followed closely by December and January.
Click Here to check on S. Florida flight delays due to weather.
Click Here for current weather delays nationwide.
Click Here for historical data about flight delays at any airport in the country.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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