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Air Traffic Controller Text Messages Airplane to Safe Landing

by Darren Murph on August 25, 2008 at 08:40 AM

Here's something you don't hear everyday ever: an Irish air traffic controller helped guide a seriously malfunctioning plane to a safe landing via text message. In a story that's admittedly tough to fathom, a pilot with four passengers aboard his twin-engined Piper plane lost all on board electrical power, communications and weather functions soon after he lifted off.

In an effort to establish any form of contact with someone back on the ground, he phoned a controller at the Cork airport and spoke only momentarily of his troubles before losing voice signal. The quick-thinking controller decided to switch up his conversation method to texting, eventually providing sufficient details to safely guide the pilot in. Can you say "promotion?" [From: Irish Times via Slashdot, image courtesy of StarWars Blog]

Tags: air traffic controller, AirTrafficController, flight, flying, ireland, messaging, pilot, plane, safety, sms, text, text messaging, texting, TextMessaging

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