1927 Travel Air crash at Page field 11/14/09

[Hollis]

Tower controller was in a good mood until things abruptly changed.
The 3 occupants were slightly injured, but the airplane was destroyed.

[obmaha]

worst phraseology I have ever heard.

[fholbert]

worst phraseology I have ever heard.

WOW!! Real bad. She is not even making an effort.

[fholbert]

Which page was this?

KFMY      Fort Myers, FL, USA      Page Field Airport      
KPGA      Page, AZ, USA      Page Municipal Airport      
KRCE      Oklahoma City, OK, USA      Clarence E Page Municipal Airport      
64G      Page, ND, USA      Page Regional Airport      
9W2      Walla Walla, WA, USA      Page Airport

[Biff]

KFMY

http://www.news-press.com/article/20091115/NEWS01/911150383/1002/Crash-mars-Aviation-Day

[cptkirk]

Wow!  that is horrible!  did I hear "just fly around"?  and "Keep an eye on em"? 

I feel bad for the accident victims and how all is going to make a full recovery.

[Galaxy001]

This is a truly distressing event.  Really glad the pilots are okay.

Not to cause controversy, but isn't it possible that the controller was a wee bit stressed by the incident and was at a slight loss for words for a few moments?  She was probably busy working with other things at the same time as telling people to stay away from the airport.  After all, someone just crashed very suddenly during a seemingly normal day.  Just because she lost the technical phraseology for a few moments (the clip cuts off before the details on accident cleanup and such can be heard, so we cannot hear what happened next) doesn't mean we can generalize her as unprofessional.  Then again, it is possible that the next part of the incident that is not on this audio clip demonstrates further unprofessionalism.  I don't know.  I'm just saying, it is difficult to judge a controller without being in their stressed shoes. 

[towercab]

As far as the controller goes, her phraseology was garbage before the accident. If something like that does happen, yes...sometimes you are at a loss for words...however you don't just start talking like you've never been a controller before. I've had an aircraft crash on me, not much to say but I didn't tell people to "fly around". The tapes of that are actually on this site.

I would also bet that the airport management didn't "close" the airport like she said so technically the airport isn't "closed", but that's besides the point. They must have skipped their phraseology improvement program over there. She wouldn't pass.

[Galaxy001]

Good deal, thanks for some insight sir.  As a controller, it seems you probably have a better perspective than many.

[towercab]

Not sure if page is contract or faa but if higher up folks review these tapes like they should (generally 5 minutes before to 5 minutes after) she should be sounding different the next time you hear her. Too bad about the accident though.   

[djmodifyd]

feel sorry for the pilot and passengers

oh...and an alert III usually causes the airport to close immediately....

[towercab]

oh...and an alert III usually causes the airport to close immediately....

Not where I am. When I was dealt my crash, the airport remained open, the runway which it occurred on became unusable and normal operations continued on the other runway. Maybe you have an LOA or something that says "upon an Alert 3, the airport is closed." Maybe FMY does too since they do have another runway. As controllers, we can't close anything. Either way, this controller couldn't handle basic phraseology, not hard to believe they couldn't handle procedures after the event.

[aviator_06]

Wow....it sounded like they took a Vatsim controller and put them in the tower and let them do the real thing. 

[Jmeert]

I was the Cessna just ahead of the Travel Air. 

[Chops]

Beleve it or not my father was one of the passangers in the crash AND he works at Page field as a CFR firefighter.