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This is the story of speed bird flight 06. If you know anything about aviation is that london heathrow is an absolutely massive airport. It is the busiest airport in europe an it is bursting at the seams in terms of traffic. This means that theres a ton of planes landing and taking off from heathrow everyday. At the time of writing heathrow had 4654 departures in just one week, thats absolutely massive, for some context in the same time frame dubai had 4006 departures. This isnt anything new, London has been a busy airport for some time. On the 28th of april 2000 all of this was still true, heathrow was bustling with activity. On that day runway 09R was being used for takeoffs and runway 09L was being used for landings. Supervising the departures was a trainee controller who was under the supervision of a controller. At about 1:55 Pm air departures got a call from london area terminal control center. They wanted to know if speed bird 6 a boeing 747 could have a special clearance to land on runway 09R. The supervising controller turned to the trainee controller and asked him to estimate the distance to touch down. They discussed for a bit and came to the conclusion that the747 was about 15 nautical miles from touching down. That meant that the 747 would be at the airport in about 5 minutes. The trainee controller ran through what she had to do in his head. sHe had given a few conditional line ups on runway 09R to a couple of planes, the soonest that they could be airborne would be in 6 minutes so he would have to break a few pilot hearts and cancel a few takeoff clearances so that the 747 could land. As all of this was happening heathrow director was in contact with speed bird 6 and said the following: “There’s no ATC speed control you’re number one for 9R” and then the plane was transferred over to air departures so that they could guide him in the rest of the way. The pilots checked in saying “ speedbird 6 on frequency range 6 miles 9R’ to which the controller replied with “speed bird 6 continue approach wind 070 8 knots”. Things were now starting to heat up in the control tower. Speed bird 6 was still a little bit out and the controller could squeeze in aa few departures before flight 06 got to runway 09R so he got on the radio and cleared shamrock 715 for takeoff. As shamrock 715 was rocketing out, the supervising controller asked the trainee controller to clear the next two waiting planes for an immediate takeoff. If you dont know what that means at busy airports if youre cleared for an immediate takeoff you turn onto the runway and then you takeoff none of that line up and waiting stuff here. In this case Luftahsa 457 was lining up after shamrock 715 was away. As lufthansa 457 was getting on the runway the controller inquired with the next plane behind lufthsana 457 he said “”MIDLAND ONE NOVEMBER ZULU WHEN SO CLEARED CAN YOU TAKE AN IMMEDIATE DEPARTURE THERE’S LANDING TRAFFIC FOUR MILES”. Midland one november zulu was good with an immediate departure. As they wrapped up this conversation lufthansa 457 was rolling meaning that he had started his takeoff run. Now it was midland one november zulus turn. As the A321 was about to get on the runway the crew decided to double check “”MIDLAND ONE NOVEMBER ZULU JUST CONFIRM WE ARE CLEARED TO LINE UP”. The trainee controller confirmed the A321 was ready to go! The controller was now talking to the next jet in the lineup for takeoff telling them that they could takeoff right after the 747 had landed. At this point the mentor took control and said “’SPEEDBIRD SIX KEEP IT COMING THERE’S ONE TO ROLL THE WIND ZERO EVEN ZERO EIGHT KNOTS”. The crew of the 747 acknowledged. They were still good to land. He then turned to the A321 and said “MIDLAND ONE NOVEMBER ZULU START
POWERING UP ON THE BRAKES AND YOU’RE CLEAR IMMEDIATE TAKE OFF
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