The 2009 Archie Awards honor Air Traffic Controllers, who, from time to time, perform remarkably.
posted by exogenous on Mar 18, 2009 - 5 comments

Push tin with ATC-SIM, an air traffic control simulator.
posted by nthdegx on Dec 24, 2008 - 31 comments

Track aircraft visually or listen to live air traffic control.
posted by grouse on Feb 11, 2007 - 9 comments

Ant Farm in the Sky - a day in the life of air traffic over the United States [.mov]. Out of NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, and seen in Cabinet Magazine.
posted by carter on Feb 14, 2005 - 10 comments

On 1 July 2002 at 21:35:32 hrs a collision between a Tupolev TU154M, which was on a flight from Moscow/Russia to Barcelona/ Spain, and a Boeing B757-200, on a flight from Bergamo/Italy to Brussels/ Belgium, occurred north of the city of Ueberlingen (Lake of Constance). Investigation Report as of May 2004, PDF. Very detailed, intelligibly written.

71 people were killed in one of Europe's worst peacetime air accidents. The report comes the the conclusion that human error was the main cause. The TCAS system (PDF) which should have prevented the collision worked, but the Tupolew crew followed the ATC instructions. It turned out that the air traffic controller missed a key warning on his radar screen in one of a chain of errors. ATCs from nearby airports realized what was going on but weren't able to contact the responsible Skyguide controller because the telephone network did not work: the main telephone line was switched off because of work being done on the telephone network, and the collision warning system was temporarily shut down for maintenance.
The ATC in charge was stabbed to death in February 2004 by a Russian man who lost his wife, son and daughter in the plane crash.
posted by tcp on Jul 1, 2004 - 9 comments

"The Tapes" -- plane radio traffic on 9/11. (NYTimes link, registration required.) It would almost be refreshing to read something like this -- hard facts and timelines, actual quotes instead of vague inferences -- were it not for the content of those quotes, which is chilling. Very much worth a read, however.
posted by precipice on Oct 15, 2001 - 9 comments