US officials are investigating after a child was apparently allowed to direct planes at New York's JFK airport.
An air traffic controller thought it would be funny to let his kid come to work and play around at one of the busiest airports in the country. They figured this out after listening to a tape of the child giving directions to pilots. Some excerpts follow.
In an exchange, the child says: "MS 4-0-3, contact departure," and then adds: "Adios, amigo." The pilot responds: "Adios, amigo." [!!!]
His father is later heard saying with a laugh: "That's what you get, guys, when the kids are out of school."In one exchange, the boy is heard saying: "JetBlue 171 contact departure." The pilot responds: "Over to departure JetBlue 171, awesome job."
Now, this sounds like the coolest thing for any little kid. Actually getting to do this is one thing, but then to be told that you're doing "an awesome job" from a real pilot is totally insanely sweet. But when an adult does the same job, they get little in the way of congratulations. This brings us to a larger issue, which is the fact that all of these pilots on the tape appear to be completely fine with a child giving them directions. They encourage him. This is completely awesome on their parts, and it keeps me thinking that all pilots are inherently badass and cool as cucumbers. And this is at what you might think is a stressful place for a plane to extricate itself from. Whenever I go there I'm stressed out so why aren't these pilots? Do we really need to be so controlled and felt up and patted down and tensed up? The pilots seem totally fine, even when a child comes on the line. They're just chilling. But that's a whole different issue than what I'm trying to raise here. Air traffic controllers are a valuable position, but who really wants to be them? Kids.
Perhaps you've read Ender's Game, dear reader. Now, imagine a world in which children were not maligned and prevented from fulfilling the jobs they wanted merely because of their small stature, tinkling voices and small vocabularies. Wouldn't it be so rad if the little persons were allowed at least, like, ONE thing they really wanted to do? Perhaps children really could do an awesome job at being air traffic controllers. I for one hope that this starts a long line of professional jobs held by minors.
