They all know who he is? Great - that honestly pleases me. I don't pretend to know what prompted that nonsense, but it simply isn't acceptable. If people make it clear to him that he's been a total and utter knob, hopefully mitigating against him repeating this behaviour in the future, then so much the better.

I don't think I have seen this mentioned in any of the replys.... but forgive me if it has.

Doesn't the ATL ground controller say "follow the MD-88 from your right. Taxi Mike short of Dixie"...?

If that is the case, wouldn't the instructions be clear? You're following the route of the preceding aircraft until you hold at Dixie? (For the sake of this discussion, I assume that the preceding 88 was coming from Ramp 2 or Ramp 1 and was on Mike already.... as we don't have any conversation about another DL 88 out of position)/

bcoz

Yeah, I was thinking that if it's coming from the right on mike, the shortest route is straight across Lima and left on Mike. But what seems obvious to some...

Judging from airline pilot central, everybody who could do so looked up the crew, and so far as I read, nobody knew them, except to observe that the capt was an early 90s hire and the fo was a 98 hire.

[Edited 2014-07-28 16:52:41]

Read the whole thread over at APC, Interesting swerves that thread takes. Makes anet seem really tame.

Quoting tp1040 (Reply 103): Read the whole thread over at APC, Interesting swerves that thread takes. Makes anet seem really tame.

Great reading...and at least people over there understand what sarcasm is.

Quoting 26point2 (Reply 98): Funny they refer to Taxiway D as "Dixie" in ATL. I don't hear this anywhere else. Must be to avoid confusion from the many Delta Airlines call signs?

Yes that is the reason, you will also hear Dixie occasionally at other DL heavy airports.

Congrats to the pilot: his response to the controller has made him the #1 read story on the Washington Post website.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/p...on-air-traffic-control/?tid=pm_pop

Quoting EA CO AS (Reply 71): Sometimes an asshole is just an asshole.

Sure, and sometimes he's more than that. In my own personal experience, assholes are rarely assholes equally to everyone. To dismiss racism out of hand is as ridiculous as to say there's any definitive proof of it. I admit I was half expecting to hear the word "boy" at some point during this exchange, the way this pilot was talking. He was just not going to be told he was wrong by that controller, for whatever reason, and I don't think it's out of bounds to suggest that race could be part of that reason - what other reason can you think of? He's a commercial pilot - he knows it's ATC's job to control traffic, it's literally right there in their job title, and he deals with controllers all day long. So why would a professional pilot snap like this? There has to be some deep-seated issue going on.

Quoting spacecadet (Reply 107): I don't think it's out of bounds to suggest that race could be part of that reason - what other reason can you think of?

He's apprently a white guy so racest for sure , or sexist or homophobe...what esle could it be? That’s certainly where the money is, at least in this country.   

Quoting airportugal310 (Reply 104): Quoting tp1040 (Reply 103): Read the whole thread over at APC, Interesting swerves that thread takes. Makes anet seem really tame. Great reading...and at least people over there understand what sarcasm is.

  
See for yourself.
http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/ha...lk/82944-delta-pilot-atc-rant.html

This from the current last post on the link:

"Also, with your situation and the original pilot's outburst -- I think I can speak for my fellow controllers and say we don't think anything of it at all. We take 10x the s--t talk from each other so this kind of stuff is only funny. We're not out to violate you, just trying to move things along. I bet the most this original controller did was turn to the local/tower guy and say this Delta hasn't had his coffee yet, look out. Then he completely forgot about it (until all this)."

Quoting DeltaMD90 (Reply 13): If he had snapped once (maybe twice) it would be one thing. This guy kept going though. He deserves at least a talking to. If I were the other pilot, I'd be extra vigilant that flight... strong emotions (such as irritability) can affect your decision making in the cockpit

Quoting Jetfixr757 (Reply 32): Nice job whoever intervened and called him "Cap't Happy" guess working at Delta is great!!! Too funny rofl!!!

What are the odds that the pilot's new nick may show up at unexpected times in his future career? This may prove a long-term test of his mettle - like an endless Dean Martin roast  

Quoting Caryjack (Reply 108): I bet the most this original controller did was turn to the local/tower guy and say this Delta hasn't had his coffee yet, look out.

Which he shouldn't have had to do, but it's nice to see that most of these guys don't have a chip on their shoulder the way this pilot did.

I think that one of the reasons the media is interested (which seems to have escaped most of the pilots at APC), is that this conduct so clearly goes against the image that the pilot community has created for itself, one of calm professionalism. And it is so condescending towards and apparenty-dismissive of and contemptuous of the job of the air traffic controller that it should raise a red flag if it's in any way typical. Which it of course is not.

I found the most disturbing part of the rant to be the "Oh my god there's a plane like six miles away," part. It just seeths contempt towards the underpinning of the whole ATC system, which is that directives are supposed to be followed. Mocking the guy by basically saying his directives weren't important because there was nobody around really does raise a question about whether retraining is warranted. And within moments of this exchange, there are a lot of calls from the ramp for taxi instructions. So it did indeed get pretty busy very quickly after that. Maybe not from an immediate-threat-to-human-life perspective, but certainly from a "keeping it moving" perspective, it is indeed important.

I get that the pilot was technically free to reach Mike by any non-prohibited route because he hadn't been given a specific route to get there. I think it's stretching it to turn onto a controlled parallel taxiway to get there, although maybe that's debateable. But to show such contempt for the system itself raises a legitimate question of whether pilots "get it". Certainly, turning onto the wrong taxiway, which pilots do all the time, justifies the correction from the controller, regardless of what the pilot's actual intent was.

And that's why this is news. (From the subsequent response from the airline and from this guy's peers, few if any of whom have leaped to his defense, it's apparent that the concerning beliefs that the pilot expressed are not widely shared.)

Quoting wjcandee (Reply 110): (From the subsequent response from the airline and from this guy's peers, few if any of whom have leaped to his defense, it's apparent that the concerning beliefs that the pilot expressed are not widely shared.

This is what struck me: I don’t recall seeing more than 1 or 2 posts supporting Captain Happy. The banter surrounding the thread starter was also telling.
Thanks,  
Cary

According to Airline Pilots Forum, Denver Center last night thanked an AirTran flight for not telling him he had an attitude.

Now that's funny! (and the definition of "viral")

Quoting spacecadet (Reply 107): To dismiss racism out of hand is as ridiculous as to say there's any definitive proof of it.

And to attempt to assume racism in a transaction where we: A) don't know the race of the participants, and B) nothing even remotely racist was said; is, at best, in bad taste. At worst, it's just a few people trying to flame.

Some people just hate it when someone else corrects them, even though they are wrong.
(they refuse to admit they're wrong!) I heard no attitude in the controller's voice, but the pilot
kept ranting on and on about the controller's attitude.

Quoting yakima (Reply 90): This article states the pilot in question landed on the wrong runway...? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-pilot-air-traffic-controller.html

This is just a crying shame. What a blatant mistake made by the editor. It appears as though he thought he could interpret the audio recording correctly. Clearly he has no idea what he's talking about. And he states no source (person) for his information, so he's probably making it all up himself.