Even Air Controllers Can’t Cut Fog

Red-eye-jet pilots circle above, awaiting a glimpse of the 125,000-watt runway lights at Spokane’s airport.

On the ground, speed-talking air-traffic controllers swig muddy coffee and stare out of a glass tower into a dawn fog so thick it seems painted on the windows.

Airport officials consider dropping five blue buckets of dry ice over the runway in hopes of creating a mini-snowstorm that punches a hole in the fog.

Spokane International Airport isn’t Chicago’s O’Hare. But it’s getting busier, collecting more tense moments as it caters to 7,000 passengers a day, a 70 percent jump in three years.

Directing the traffic also gets trickier during Spokane’s fall and winter fog season when pilots fly almost blind, relying on tower controllers and their colleagues six floors below in the dark radar room.

It’s Friday at 6:45 a.m., and controller Pat Dalsanders’ eyes are fixed on a bright green radar screen. He’s trying to help planes land before the fog gets too thick.

Dalsanders is dressed like most controllers, casual, in jeans. He stands out because he’s a tall, motor-mouthed exMarine with grapefruit-sized biceps.

“It’s going to get good here in a minute,” he says, meaning it’s going to get intense, busy, as the fog gets thicker.

A green blip represents Horizon Air Flight 423, which descends to 150 feet above the runway. The pilot still can’t see the lights. The plane loops around. The fog gets thicker.

Dalsanders calls Seattle controllers to let them know about the weather. He then yaks with so many pilots so fast it sounds like some secret military code.

Then everything calms. Nobody’s landing. Almost nobody is taking off. Everyone waits during the peak of morning rush-hour.

“How high do we want to stack them?” Dalsanders asks, referring to the jets circling in a frequently used holding pattern more than a mile above Spokane Falls Community College. “We’ve got one at 6,000, one at 7,000 …”

After some banter with the man relieving him so he can go to the tower, Dalsanders complains about controllers who miss work on days such as this: “The weak-sticks call in sick when it’s foggy.”

Spokane controllers aren’t sky cops. Technically, they don’t order pilots around. They give information. They keep planes apart.

The job requires fast minds and fast lips. Along with about 170 commercial jets a day, controllers also guide planes in and out of Fairchild Air Force Base, give clearance to Whidbey Island-based A-6 Navy bombers on mock bombing runs in downtown Spokane, and maybe even help the Walla Walla flight club find a pancake breakfast in Deer Park, or a lunch at Felts Field.

Controllers think several moves ahead while engaging in brief, precise conversations with pilots, answering hot lines and studying radar.

“Show me a good bartender or a good fry cook and I’ll show you a good controller,” says David Adams, assistant air traffic manager for the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s Spokane tower operation.

At home, a typical controller can listen to a ballgame on the radio, watch the television, read the newspaper and carry on a conversation all at the same time, Adams says, noting the skill can irritate spouses.

Dalsanders goes from the radar room to the tower, where he teams with Kevin Moro, a wiry controller with a leather flight jacket. The fog gets thicker. There isn’t much to do. It gets strangely silent. A wasp tours the ceiling.

Dalsanders seizes the lull to boast he hasn’t missed an hour of sick time in more than 20 years as a controller.

Moro wonders aloud if airports attract or manufacture fog.

Everyone listens carefully as Moro recalls the June 24 B-52 crash at Fairchild.

He describes the bomber’s cartwheel, and how he directed departures away from the flaming wreckage. Awhile after the crash, Moro says he still was shaking so hard he asked to be relieved.

Dalsanders fills another interval by jokingly embellishing his military record, fabricating a fighter pilot career in Vietnam - 242 sorties, two confirmed kills.

These are the lulls that settle the nerves. It can get tense fast.

Consider the previous afternoon: Jill Charlton, a controller trainee, scrambles to keep pace. She has a helicopter and three KC-135 tankers arriving at Fairchild at different speeds. She has to keep them spaced perfectly, mindful that their approach route crosses paths in the sky with the approach to Spokane International Airport.

Charlton gets closer to the radar. She talks non-stop with pilots, Seattle controllers, Fairchild tower officials, juggling all the lines like some efficient, caffeine-mad switchboard operator.

Moro stands behind her, helping and smiling. She is surviving well under heavy pressure.

By 8:10 a.m. Friday, some jets are turning around, flying back to Portland or Seattle. One heads to Pullman. Spokane’s fog is costing the airlines money.

By 8:38, a Led Zeppelin song is playing softly in the tower, and Dalsanders is joking about his wife.

Horizon Air Flight 50 wants to try to land at 9:20. The pilot gets close enough to the runway to know he can’t, and heads back to Portland.

The fog eases, but it’ll be awhile before the rush hits again. A Southwestern jet lands, the first one in more than an hour. In all, eight jets abandon plans to land in Spokane on this morning - a typical fog day.

By 10:20, controllers can actually see the planes approaching for the first time, poking through cloud walls above the soggy West Plains.

The runway lights are turned down. There won’t be any more delays today.