Word: towers
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...terminal in a difficult turn for a big plane. Another sharp turn onto the taxiway would be required. Pan Am officials were later to explain that the crew considered C-l inactive because it was blocked by aircraft and assumed that the final turn was the "third intersection" the tower meant the plane to take. Pan Am was only about 475 ft. away from its safe exit when all hell broke loose. Captain Grubbs and First Officer Bragg saw lights blurred by fog on the runway ahead of them. They thought the lights were stationary. But the glows loomed larger...
...Romans called the islands Insulas Canarias, or "Islands of the Dogs," because of the many canines found there. *Pan Am officials insist Grubbs never made this statement and that it does not appear on tower tape transcripts. Grubbs, however, told at least one reporter that he had, indeed, said this. If so, it should show up on a cockpit voice tape...
Precise communication becomes vitally important. To reduce the risk of misunderstanding between tower and cockpit, a controller is forbidden to tell a pilot to "hold for takeoff." The mere mention of "takeoff" could trigger a response in the mind of the pilot and cause him to throw the throttles open prematurely. The correct command: "Taxi into position and hold...
When the controller in the tower is sure that the runway is safe, he gives the command to go: "Eastern 158, cleared for takeoff." Soon after the jet leaves the ground, another technician in the station, known as departure control, picks up the jet on radar and guides it out of the general area of the airport. Next, a controller in one of the 20 air-route traffic control centers that blanket the country takes over responsibility, monitors the jet through his section of the sky, and then hands it on to the adjoining control center...
Every jetliner is also equipped with a device that stridently warns a pilot who is unknowingly flying toward a mountainside, a tower or the ground. The instrument flashes a red light, sounds a whooping alarm and plays a recording that orders, "Pull up! Pull up!" The system seems to be working well. In 1976, the first year it was universally used, no U.S. airliner rammed into an obstruction. During the previous ten years, there had been an average of six such crashes annually...