As Air Force One journeyed from the US to the UK this week, it came within eight lateral miles of a Spirit Airlines flight heading up the East Coast from Fort Lauderdale to Boston. An alert air traffic controller in the New York control center reached out to the Spirit flight, telling it to execute an immediate right turn to avoid any possibility of colliding with Air Force One.
But the Spirit pilots did not respond immediately, leading the testy air traffic controller to scold them repeatedly. (You can listen to the audio archive on LiveATC.net; it begins at around the 23:15 mark.)
"Pay attention!" said the controller after his first instruction was not acknowledged. "Spirit 1300, turn 20 degrees right."
No reply.
"Spirit 1300, turn 20 degrees right now," the controller added a few seconds later.
No reply.
"Spirit wings 1300, turn 20 degrees right IMMEDIATELY!"
This time, the controller received an acknowledgement, but he made sure to let the pilots know that he was displeased with their response times, giving them another "Pay attention!"
The controller then provided the background for his request.
"Spirit 1300, traffic's off your left wing by 6, uh, 8 miles. 747. I'm sure you can see who it is... Keep an eye out for him. He's white and blue."
A minute later, the controller reached out with contact information for the Boston-area air traffic control center that would handle the Spirit plane's descent and landing. (134.0 is the frequency for DXR 19, the control group which handles traffic coming out of the New York metro area and heading into Boston.)
"Spirit 1300: Boston Center, 134.0."
After no immediate response, the controller chastised the pilots again.
"I gotta talk to you twice every time," he said, then repeated: "Boston 134.0."
When Spirit 1300 finally acknowledged the frequency, the controller got in one final dig before passing them on.
"Pay attention!" he said. "Get off the iPad!"
We have no idea if the Spirit pilots were actually distracted by an iPad, of course, but tablets have been essential to pilots for years. As far back as 2019, a trade publication noted that, "in aviation, iPads are to pilots what cellphones are to drivers. While many of us learned how to fly without an iPad, we now can’t imagine flying without it. It has become our source of weather data, our flight planner, our notam checker, our weight and balance calculator, and our map—all in one. While it has the power to make us radically more informed, organized, and safer, iPads, like cellphones, have considerable drawbacks when not used thoughtfully."
The Spirit plane landed safely in Boston.
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