If a recent spate of incidents has led you to believe that all air traffic controllers are asleep on the job, rest easy — some of them are watching movies instead.
The latest case of a controller treating his job like a college soph treats a night at the library comes from right here in Northeast Ohio. An unnamed controller at the Oberlin station was caught watching a DVD while he was supposed to be watching the skies. How did this lapse come to light? His mic was “inadvertently activated,” meaning pilots up in the great blue could hear the movie playing in the background. A military pilot reported the incident, according to the AP.
The dereliction of duty, which is bad already, is worse, if only by a degree, because of the fella’s movie choice: Cleaner, the 2007 snoozer starring Samuel L. Jackson that racked up a surprisingly high 17% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. (What? No one had a DVD of Britney’s Crossroads he could have borrowed?)
This article appears in Apr 13-19, 2011.
