434th ARW Public Affairs
10/2/2014 - GRISSOM AIR RESERVE BASE, Ind. -- Chicago's Air Route Traffic Control Center controlled more than 3 million air operations last year with hundreds of millions of lives in the hands of their air traffic controllers, but when Chicago's radar scopes went black Sept. 26, many of those lives fell safely into the hands of Grissom's ATC.
"When we went to open Friday morning, our ATC supervisor wasn't able to contact anyone at Chicago Center, so he came to me and said 'we've got a problem,'" said Michael Lang, 434th Operations Support Squadron air traffic manager.
That problem, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, was caused by a fire at the high-altitude radar facility in Aurora, Illinois, causing them to go into ATC Zero, which means they have zero ability to control air traffic.
"This is really big -- Chicago Center is responsible for a huge area," said Michael Peeper, 434th OSS ATC specialist. "I've been doing this for 25 years, and this has got to be the biggest thing I've ever seen impact ATC, so it's pretty serious."
The CARTCC is an en-route facility with airspace overlying six Midwestern states, including Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan and Missouri.
The National Airspace System (NAS) is made up of FAA and Department of Defense ATC facilities that act as a patchwork of control nodes across the United States.
The system incorporates three levels of facilities that overlap each other. These include tower facilities, which generally from the surface up to 2,500 feet; approach control facilities, which generally control up to 10,000 feet; and centers, which generally control 10,000 feet and above.
"Chicago Center, manages air traffic at a higher stratus, so they're normally controlling those guys going some distance, such as an aircraft traveling from Cleveland to Minneapolis-St Paul" said Bob Moore, 434th OSS airfield operations manager.
With ATC Zero in place at the CARTCC, Grissom and the other approach control facilities around the center stepped up to fill the enormous gap, said Moore.
"At that point, we went to what's called a tower-enroute plan," explained Lang. "That's where we push all the traffic down, route it through the approach control facilities, and avoid the center's airspace, because that's all uncontrolled."
Grissom ATC normally controls all commercial, civilian and military air traffic up to 10,000 feet between Chicago and Indianapolis, going as far west as Lafayette, Indiana, which is an area of more than 11,000 cubic miles.
Shortly after implementing that plan, the FAA also gave Grissom and the surrounding approach facilities responsibility for an additional 5,000 feet above their airspace, which created a 400-percent increase in the air traffic Grissom managed.
"We have air carriers that normally cruise at 30-35,000 feet that are now being pushed down into our airspace at 15,000 feet," said Peeper, who added that Grissom's ATC facility, which normally is open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. 365 days a year has gone to 24-hour operations.
"Right now we're working through the night to control two sectors of Chicago Center's air traffic, and most of that is jet traffic going all over the country," he explained, adding that the volume of traffic is growing daily.
While increasing their air traffic at such a high volume might sound tough enough, it's a secondary affect that the CARTCC fire had that's causing a tremendous burden on controllers.
"On top of everything else, we have no automation to boot," said Lang, referring to a complex computer automation system at the CARTCC that transmitted flight plan data to the approach facilities for aircraft transiting their airspace. "Everything's a manual phone call, a manual hand-written strip, and a manual coordination of progress on an aircraft."
"We had to step backwards to the 1970s," added Moore. "We're gutting through it right now."
Where a computer system used to electronically monitor an aircraft's progress and notify controllers through a system of strips printed out to help them direct that aircraft, controllers are now having to pass that information along through a minimum of four separate phone calls for each aircraft.
"When you have to manually coordinate each and every flight plan, it's extremely time consuming," said Peeper.
"You might think at a time like this being on the scope and controlling the aircraft would be the hard part, but that's actually the seat you want to be sitting in even though you're busier than all get out," added Lang. "It's sitting in the role as the assist with all the manual coordination that's the hardest part."
For each controller on duty at Grissom, there is an assist who helps with tracking the aircraft, and in this case, takes care of the manual coordination.
While word-of-mouth operations may seem a bit scary to some, all three Grissom ATC specialists said air travel is just as safe today as it was the day before the fire.
"[The FAA] opened up a command center with an open phone line that is still ongoing to this day and facilitates communications with all the FAA facilities in the area," said Lang. "Somebody is listening to everybody, so if something gets missed, it will get caught."
Also, helping keep the skies safe and sound is the tremendous amount of experience at Grissom.
"The good thing is that Grissom is made of a lot of great people who are really experienced," explained Peeper. "Most controllers, when they come here, they arrive with six to 10 years of experience, which has really helped out."
"Some of these people have been doing this for 20 to 40 years," added Moore. "They were able to come in Friday and really step their game up."
On top of the sheer number of years behind the scopes, many of Grissom's controllers are also prior military and have experience working in environments without the comforts of modern automation, said Lang.
"I served as a Marine in Japan and several of us served overseas with the Air Force or Army where we worked in similar environments," added Peeper.
Despite a high-level of experience, the recent events have pushed Grissom's ATC to its limits with manpower.
"We're juggling schedules, and it's pushing overtime, obviously, but we're able to maintain with the controllers we have -- it's tight, but everyone, including Bob and I and the rest of the ATC staff, are strapping on a headset and working as well," said Lang. "We've got an extremely talented group who are all experienced, and now they're just showcasing what they can do to support the NAS."
Not only have Grissom's ATC controllers supported the NAS at a critical time, they also continued to support the vital military mission at the north-central Indiana base.
"We're still supporting the wing's air refueling operations," said Lang. "We had to redirect some routings initially, but that mission never faltered."
While the situation is still ongoing, Grissom's controllers said they're happy to continue to work hard to help get the NAS back up to 100 percent.
"When this kicked off on Friday, we contacted our controllers and everyone said, 'I'll do whatever you need me to do,'" said Lang, who added that the situation is improving despite the fact the CARTCC may not be up to full capability for a couple more weeks. "The holes are filling in daily."
"It's very rewarding knowing that we're part of the big picture and doing our part to help," concluded Peeper. "You think it's never going to happen, but in this day and age, things do happen, and here we are doing what we hoped we'd never have to do."
Grissom is home to not only the 434th ARW, the largest KC-135R Stratotanker unit in the Air Force Reserve Command, but also three Army Reserve units and a Marine Corps Reserve communication detachment. Grissom Airmen, Soldiers and Marines routinely deploy around the world in support of the Department of Defense mission and U.S. strategic objectives.
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