Ben Sliney actually played himself in the movie United 93. It was his first day on the job, but he was pretty experienced, he previously ran all of New York City’s air traffic.
I saw an interview with him maybe 15 years ago (sorry I can’t find it now) but he grounded every plane in the US without approval from anyone above him on his first day as the FAA National Operation Manager (I believe he was at least 5 levels below the President).
Pretty incredible story but he knew how to react and executed the plan well.
edit: clarified some stuff and figured I should include his Wikipedia page too
Thanks for sharing. That’s really interesting. Also, what a way to absolutely do great on your first day. Realize there’s a massive aerospace emergency, ground all flights without approval, because approval could mean the cost of more lives. Dude deserves some praise for what he did.
Looking back at history, we’re there other flights as attack vectors that a ground stop prevented from executing their plan? Or was a ground stop, albeit the correct course of action, pointless in preventing anything because the plan had already been executed in full?
Even if there weren’t any planned attacks at the moment, the preventive and protective actions are usually done regardless of the temporary costs.
Without going much political, I can say that move was one of the most critical ones, maybe right after preventing nuclear warfare, because I don’t want to think how much worse the American retaliation in the last 20 years would be if there was even one more kamikaze plane, especially considering that we now measure warcrimes in magnitudes of 9/11.
Now imagine what it was like for the guy who took over his old job in New York on that day.
I wonder if there was a moment where he was like, “oh haha, very funny guys. Sure it just crashed into the WTC, totally.”
Damn, can you imagine that being your first day? I assume he had already been through some kind of training or had some assistance in making the decision to ground air traffic
This guy is going to completely ace his next job interview.
“Tell us about the last time you had to solve a difficult problem”
“Yea got a funny story about that…”
It was his first day in charge, but far from his first day with the FAA. He still had a lot of experience.
He also played himself in United 93.
Trial by fire, literally.
Here’s to the only funny joke in the entire CAD animated series: https://youtu.be/ePdibIRunUE
Out of the loop. Context please?
Look up the release date of lego star wars 2.
I just hope he didn’t bombed his first day.
Mf
