Ridiculous ATC Requests?!?

Question

What are some of the more ridiculous requests you have received on approach from ATC? Did you follow them or ask them for changes? Are they recurrent more at certain centers than others? Was it laughable, downright frustrating or even dangerous?!

Answer 1

On a descent once into Sacramento, I was asked to expedite. I was now descending at about 1100 fpm and they asked if I could descend any faster. I told them the only way I could descend faster would be to jump out of the airplane.

Answer 2

The most ridiculous ATC request I witnessed involved a Northwest Airlines A320 making a night visual approach into Green Bay, WI.

The Airbus was given a vector by the controller and I heard the pilot requesting to go direct to the marker instead of following the controller's vector (For those of you who have never done it, making a night visual approach.  You can't really see those runway lights until you're almost lined up on final and it's quite difficult to determine when to start your turn.  The Northwest pilot's request to go to the marker - about 5 miles from the runway - was simply a request to allow him more time to acquire the runway and get lined up).

Anyway, the controller got quite upset.  He made a couple of comments to the effect that he didn't know why he wanted to do that and that the vector given was not, in fact, too close to the runway.  All the while the Northwest crew was extremely professional.  Finally the controller said, "You guys just might be making a phone call when you land".  I looked at my FO in disbelief.  I couldn't believe that the controller was so upset simply because Northwest didn't want to make a short approach at night.  Plus, this is Green Bay, WI at 10:30pm.  There were exactly two aircraft approaching the airport at that time: Northwest and me.  It's not like the controller was working O'Hare single handedly and had 30 airplanes to shoehorn into the airport.

I ran into that Northwest pilot the next morning (we stay at the same hotel).  He told me that the controller was, in fact, going to try to violate him for refusing his vector.  Unbelievable!  Apparently this controller has forgotten who's working for who.

Answer 3

archer ???? are you able to make a left 360?  This was asked as I was rolling out after landing.  I said, ya once we slow down we'll give ya one here.

Answer 4

I was on a less than 1/2 final for RWY 07 during a solo training flight into my home field of KORL, and at less than 500', when I hear the tower ask if a Citation at the hold short "... can you give me an immediate?".

The Citation driver comes back with "Sure thing, ma'am.", and pulls out onto the runway. Now, when tower asks for an "immediate", it is just that - brakes off, throttle up and GO. Well, this guy pulls out onto the numbers, and just SITS THERE. Tower again asks for an immediate, and he says "We're on it.", and the jet never moves. All the while, tower is telling him "Caution aircraft on short final (me); winds are x*x from x*x - clear for take off - break - Cessna 6565B, caution wake turbulence from the departing Citation, clear to land runway 07".

The holes are lining up in the Swiss Cheese...

Now, at this point in my flying career, I am a super-noob - but, I am smart enough to know that my AVGAS costs way less than this Citations Jet-A, so I pull the nose up a bit, bleed off some speed, and slow it down to give this guy some time to get going. My instructor is also 1 plane back behind me with another student a mile in trail, listening to this situation develop.

So I am in the weeds, super slow, with my instructor behind me having visions of his commercial flying career going down the toilet because his student (me) stalled, crashed, & died trying to be a nice guy. He told me that he was just about to call out for me to go around (big no no for him to do that) when I realized just how dumb of a situation I got myself into, and said "Hey Exec tower, you want 65B to go around?" Exec tower says "Negative, 65B, give me a left 360 and re-sequence".

My instructor in the plane behind me d**n near died.

By this time, I am right over the rabbits, and LOOOOOW. I told the tower "Negative, 64B is going around." Right then, the Citation guy called up and said "OK, ah, we're ready to go on 07." Tower told them to hold, then told my instructor and his student to make a left 360, and I went around - by dragging the runway at 60 knots, with full flaps, for about 5,000 feet of it's length. I then made right traffic, and the Citation FINALLY got rolling. I re-sequenced in behind my instructor and made the full stop.

The moral of this story is ATC works FOR the pilot, and not the other way around. Personally, I think I behaved pretty foolishly by putting that Citation guy in the penalty box like, just to cost him some expensive fuel, but he REALLY upset me by not doing his job, and getting on the gas to take off. I also learned that while it is good to be nice for others (I have extended many a time to let a jet that was behind me get on the ground), it is more important to look out for the safety of #1... ME.

Answer 5

"maintain maximum altitude 2000ft". nighttime operations, terrain 2000 ft enroute, daytime ceiling restriction 2500ft. rather dangerous, fortunately the crew was proffesional and aware of the situation.

Answer 6

One that I recall was coming into LAX. So Cal approach gave us a get down/slow down restriction that was ridiculous. In other words we were descending at 250 kts and he gave us a clearance like "Boeing seven Juliet romeo, cross elmoo at six thousand, 180 kts or less." Now to do this would require some fancy flying indeed. I recall we had been level at about ten thousand and he had not long ago said to maintain 250 until advised. I could see what was about to happen and this guy was really getting behind and was having trouble keeping everything straight.

We do have speed brakes but to yank em out abruptly and nose into a steep dive at the last moment is disconcerting to the passengers. In fact the boss had said in the past that when his wife was on board he'd like us to avoid using them in flight as best we could.

Anyway, because it was my leg the FO looked at me as if to ask, "you think we can do that?" I just shook my head and he clicked his mic and said "Boeing seven Juliet romeo is unable".

The controller came back on and said something like, "c'mon JR. I know you've got speed brakes".

The FO again looked at me for my reaction and I held up my hand, to indicated that I'd take this one, clicked my mic and said, "My speed brakes are for my mistakes. Not yours."

Answer 7

This was in Saudi Arabia, late 2001.  I was aircrew on an E-3 coming back from an uneventful Southern Watch mission, just listening to the ATC radios and trying to catch some sleep.  The Saudi government had just taken over responsibility for controlling coalition airspace back from American troops, and we were all a bit nervous as the Saudis had made it quite clear that they didn't want their controllers to have to talk to more then one aircraft at a time which is not a good sign :).  I listened as the controller sent a flight of four Mirages to hold at a fix at a certain altitude, after which our pilot checked in.  We were astounded to hear the controller direct us to hold at the exact same fix, exact same altitude.  We asked them for a different altitude...

Answer 8

Departure from Amsterdam, last flight for the day:

"Take taxiway of your choise, runway of you choice, destination of your choice and have a good flight"

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