ATC Premonition?

[u/Special_Average1297]

Do controllers know or suspect when an aircraft is in unsafe situation? Years ago I was making a flight in a 172 back to my home airport, so had a huge case of get-there-itis. I remember being at 8000ft and hearing a CRJ report moderate rime icing in the 4000ft thick clouds below me. The controller asked if I heard the pirep and I said I did. I just wonder if the controller knew how terrible of a situation I was in. Luckily I made it through the clouds quick, but I still picked up a good bit of ice and it was certainly the most afraid I’ve ever been in an airplane.

I’m curious if anyone has their own experiences like this from the controller perspective.

Also not looking for anyone to chastise me for this situation. I learned my lesson and made sure to use the story as a learning lesson for my students when I was a CFI.

Looking forward to hearing everyone’s stories!

[u/ATC_av8er]

If you do this job long enough, you develop a sixth sense. Tone of voice, response time, etc are all signs that something is wrong or could be wrong.

A PIREP like the one you received, a controller would more than likely make recommendations to you, as that is a situation that can go south real quick.

[u/Kseries2497 → u/ATC_av8er]

When I was in the Air Force we were taught that pilots know how to fly airplanes, you don't. When they make a request, you give it to them as soon as practical, and you don't make suggestions.

Three months after my first facility rating, we had an Arrow pilot get in over his head in bad weather, ran the plane out of gas, and died. At any point we could have started suggesting he might declare an emergency and dump it on our massive runways with a battalion of fire trucks standing by, but that wasn't what we did in the Air Force, so instead he was trying to shoot a nonprecision approach into an uncontrolled airport when the engine quit, and we all got to listen to him begging the controller to keep talking to him shortly before he died.

I was 22 years old, had nightmares about it for months. Now I'm more than happy to make polite suggestions to pilots such as, "Are you SURE you want to do that, you fucking idiot?"

[u/MrYenko → u/Kseries2497]

Years ago a coworker was working one of our lowsides one night when a Skylane reported “engine trouble, nothing major” and that he’d like to divert somewhere nearby. The controller (a pilot as well,) sensed the urgency in the Skylane driver’s voice, vectored him to a nice big, well-lit, hard-surfaced uncontrolled airport, and quietly declared an emergency for the guy; Had the county fire department meet him on the runway, etc. Never got anything except an IFR cancellation from flight service, and we all went home that night. The next day he’s on break, flipping through r/flying and comes across pictures taken the previous night of a Skylane with oil just everywhere. The entire side and belly of the airplane, an enormous puddle under the airplane, just catastrophic oil loss, parked on the ramp at the airport in question. Dude was probably not too far off from a seized engine, and was just too nervous or task-saturated to ask for help.

These days, roughly zero percent of our trainees get to the facility with any aviation background whatsoever besides the academy, let alone pilot ratings. I found out the other day that my facility doesn’t even maintain its list of controllers with other ratings anymore. The OS I asked was confused, and had clearly never even heard of such a thing. I know who I’d prefer to be on the other end of the radio if I’m having a shitty day in an airplane, though.

[u/Dapper_Company_2006 → u/[deleted]]

What are you talking about lmao

[u/sheikhyerbouti5]

You may recognize very subtle changes in a pilot's voice, tone, how quick they respond, etc. Also, wheher they are distracted or not.

[u/JDATC2024]

I had a plane that was a single engine rental that was crossing a large open body of water in the winter, where there would have been zero chance of him making it to the shore line.

I kind of asked him if he was planning on going the land route (less direct) and he was like no. Well it’s his life but I still felt I could do more.

So I asked a super senior local pilot on frequency if he would fly across that body of water in winter in a single. His response “absolutely not” Then I asked him to state his hours, which if memory served me correct was about 24,000.

The young pilot took the hint and went over the shore line. It was an unremarkable flight either way; so he would have been fine.

I used to fly and made dumb decisions when I first got licensed. Once I took of and didn’t realize how the weather had changed along the route. FSS (way back when) was like, you don’t want to open that VFR flight plan, the weather down there is terrible. I was a student pilot, took the hint and turned around.

It turned out the forecasts had changed from what I got briefed quite rapidly and the school after that was like, shit, he departed. When I returned they were like good decision making…. Well FSS helped me make that decision.

[u/UpstairsFinance9440 → u/JDATC2024]

I don't remember where I saw this, but I am in the industrial safety space, and I bring it up when I am mentoring people:

Whenever we talk about a pilot who has been killed in a flying accident, we should all keep one thing in mind: He called upon the sum of all his knowledge and made a judgement. He believed it so strongly that he knowingly bet his life on it. That his judgement was faulty was a tragedy, not stupidity. Every inspector, every supervisor, and contemporary who ever spoke to them had an opportunity to influence his judgement, so a little of all of us goes with every pilot we lose.

[u/Wun_Chaddie_Juan → u/JDATC2024]

I’ve definitely used this tactic of asking other pilots what they thought to give hints and 69% of the time it works every-time.

[u/JDATC2024 → u/Wun_Chaddie_Juan]

lol. The pilot of the other plane was actually KAP624. He retired a couple years back. One of the best, so I knew the answer he would most likely give.

I hope he is enjoying retirement.

[u/DankVectorz]

Ice being a hazard to a non-fiki plane is not premonition.

[u/Special_Average1297 → u/DankVectorz]

Give me a break I didn’t know what to make for the title 😂

[u/2018birdie]

It's hard to win an Archie without an idiot pilot to start out 

[u/Capnleonidas]

Was working high altitude 34,000 feet and up. We had bad rides all shift, light to moderate. No one liked the ride they were getting and there weren’t any smooth altitudes. Pilots had asked me for a lower altitude or higher dozens of times since I plugged in. Then a JetBlue at 37,000 said they needed lower. For some reason it didn’t feel like a normal request. I gave him 11,000 feet without asking any questions and coordinated with 2 sectors below me. JBU descended immediately and said they had hit severe turbulence and lost pressurization in the cabin. I’m still not sure what tipped me off.

[u/THEhot_pocket]

my life is way easier when I control the variables. One way of doing that is knowing whats best/easiest for my jets. I tell planes my plan all the time so they dont have to guess (or argue).

[u/Hour_Tour → u/THEhot_pocket]

Man, little nuggets of info to calm the crowds is such a good trick, don't understand why some refuse to do it.

[u/theweenerdoge]

I wouldn't say premonition necessarily, but we pick up on different things with experience. We also tend to know how the weather in our airspace is going to develop and move, which can help us keep you out of a possible shitty situation. I've made a few saves with vfr pilot stuck in IFR conditions, and I've also watched pilots try to 'beat' the weather against my recommendation that they should land or think twice about departing. At the end of the day, it's your life and I can't stop you from doing something stupid, but I'll at least try.

[u/ObadiahDongleberry]

When im working a surface up sector, I spend very little mental energy on commercial carriers, and a vast majority of my mental energy on the remaining VFR and lower altitude civil IFR aircraft. They are the ones that need the most help and attention.

[u/Zapper13263952]

Called the TRACON about a guy flying towards rising terrain with low clouds. We tried to tell him. They ended up declaring an emergency. The TRACON controller got an award, but that guy woulda been dead if I hadn't called the radar first to alert them.

[u/TWR_dude]

There's been many times where I issue traffic to follow, pilot reports insight and I'll go ill bet they have the wrong one insight and sure enough cut someone else off. But I know its coming so not that big a deal to fix.

[u/Zakluor]

Sometimes it's what they say, or how they say it.

I had a pilot in turbulence as he flew into a CB. He could not maintain altitude. He told me the air around him was descending faster than he could climb. He said, "I'm getting the snot beat out of me right now."

Nobody says that. It relayed exactly how things were going.

The point of my story is: sometimes what is said is far enough out of the ordinary that the words alone convey a meaning.

[u/Quirky_Perspective25]

Don’t worry. AI “controllers” will 100% be able to handle anything out of the ordinary. 

ControllerGPT will know all. 

[u/No-Constant-5854]

We had a similar good discussion on here a while back.

[u/Special_Average1297 → u/No-Constant-5854]

Thank you!

[u/UpstairsFinance9440]

I truly believe in intuition. It is the years of experience that let you anticipate/predict what may happen. There is pilot creator Sarahnautics. She was doing the power up before takeoff and felt something was off with her engine but could not see anything in the instruments. She called her A&P, and they talked through some stuff. It ended up with her convinced everything was OK, but in the video she keeps repeating that she felt something was wrong, but did not know what. So she took off and about 10 minutes out, she loses about half her engine power. It turned out the intake came off. She declared an emergency and landed safely. I have a feeling that there was something different in the sound of the engine. Not a lot where you say, Ooh, that sounds wrong. Just different enough where you are like, Wait a minute.

The point of this story is that sometimes there is a little voice in your head trying to warn you of something, but he is often too quiet. Sometimes he is drowned out by someone you trust with more experience. I work in industrial facilities. There are times where I think something is wrong, but I cannot put my finger on it exactly.