I thought I had covered the whole subject of the controller/pilot interface pretty thoroughly. In the January 2008 issue (“The Controller Failed to Inform…”), I used two accidents to illustrate the perils of depending on the controller to keep out of weather and away from high terrain. In the July issue (“Saved by the Controller”) I presented the other side of the story, describing two of the many cases where the controller did in fact save a pilot from almost certain harm. Then last month I shared advice from a book by John Stewart on how pilots can do their part in “Working With Controllers.”
A seven-page letter I received from Craig Drake, a general aviation pilot who works as a controller at Denver Center, convinced me that there was a lot more on this subject pilots need to consider. Because Craig is both a pilot and a controller, he has a unique perspective on some of the topics I had covered. It turns out that the whole issue of why a controller may not warn a pilot about bad weather or high terrain ahead is much more complicated than I ever imagined. It just so happened that I was on my way to Denver to provide Error Prevention Training to Lockheed Martin Space Systems and United Launch Alliance employees the following week, and I arranged an appointment for a tour of Denver Center so I could see for myself what Craig was talking about.
