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History of Air Traffic Control

Caleb A. Wesley

Aviation Department, Sinclair Community College

AVT 1141

Mr.Shepard

October 14, 2021

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Post world war 1 early aviation remained a very dangerous business. Most pilots

only flew 200 - 500 feet above the ground to navigate by roads and railroads. During

low visibility or nighttime, landings were performed with a bonfire on the field as the

lighting. During this time fatal accidents were routine (A Brief History of the FAA).

The Air Act of 1925 started the first profitable commercial airline industries. After

the air act, several airlines began to run scheduled transportation (A Brief History of the

FAA). With air travel at the time starting to skyrocket some airport operators started to

try to help make safety better with travel by air.

The earliest form of ATC or Air Traffic Control was simply someone standing

somewhere on the field with different flags. They would wave the flags as a way to

communicate with the pilots. The very first established flagman was in St. Louis,

Missouri in the late 1920s (A Brief History of the FAA).

Early on after the air act with profitable airlines taking to the skies they first began

to develop a way to control their own traffic. However, there were still many highly

publicized mid-air collisions and crashes in the mid-1930s, including the crash that took

the life of New Mexico senator Bronson Cutting. Which further highlighted the need and

necessity of a national system for air travel safety (The beginning of Air Control). There

then was a realization that a new Navigation system was needed for all aircraft. This

way planes could fly reliably and safely at night and in the mids of bad weather. In the
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1920s the first low-frequency radio, long-range, began experiments along the national

air transport route New York to Chicago (The beginning of Air Control).

In December of 1935 the first ATC center at Newark, New Jersey had been

established. Two more soon followed with one going into Cleveland and the second into

Chicago. The Department of Commerce took over their operation in mid-1936. Within a

year eight new centers had been built and began their operations, now covering from

one coast of the states to the other (The beginning of Air Control).

Now allow me to speak on a very tragic mid-air collision that cost 128 people

their lives. This would be the story of the 1956 Grand Canyon Midair Collison.

On June 30, 1956, a United Airlines and a TWA flight collided in the air. Between

the two planes, none of the 128 people on board survived (Nelson XXXVII). The TWA

flight had contacted the ground controller at 9:54 and received a routine taxi clearance

(Nelson 48). At 9:55 TWA began to push back and taxi from their gate, they were 25

minutes behind their scheduled departure time. (Nelson 48). The United flight 718

began to taxi from their gate then contacted the ground controller, this was not a serious

offense to do, just unorthodox. They were 13 minutes behind their scheduled departure

time (Nelson 49).

TWA flight 2 had received its takeoff clearance. At 10:01 AM PDT TWA 2 was

wheels up, never to come down safely again (Nelson 54). A few minutes after TWA’s

takeoff United flight 718 received its takeoff clearance. At 10:04 AM PDT United 718

was airborne (Nelson 56). After TWA 2’s takeoff at 10:03 AM they broke into clear skies

at an altitude of 2,400 feet (Nelson 56). At 10:06 United 718 had broken through the
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overcast at 2,900 feet (Nelson 56). At the bottom of page 56, Nelson stated, “All

Altitudes provided in this book are given in MSL.”.

United 718’s planned cruising altitude was 21,000. TWA 2’s is not provided in the

book, though they made an early en route flight plan change to a cruising altitude of

19,000 feet, the same as United’s (Nelson 56). During both planes’ cruising stage

nothing, major happens United spends their time at flight level 210, and TWA with their

early change ended up climbing to flight level 210 and remained there (Nelson 57).

At the time of the incident, TWA 2 had last requested a cruising altitude at 21,000

through ARTC (Air Route Traffic Control) which they did not grant him, but they did

however allow them for 1,000 on top. Which allowed flight 2 to climb up to 21,000 feet

on his own accord (Nelson 72). During ARTC giving them this clearance they never

asked what flight 2’s reason was they only assumed it was weather around a point, they

were flying towards, Daggett, which they were still over 50 miles away from (Nelson 72).

When TWA 2 made this request they were reported at 14,000 feet and 50 miles from

Daggett (Nelson 72). At 10:21 the time of TWA’s request there were no build-ups of any

sort near them, the only ones they had relatively close were nearly a mile below at

19,000 feet (Nelson 73).

Nelson’s personal opinion is as follows on page 73 “In my opinion, their

motivation for requesting 21,000 feet was not the weather, and their motivation for

requesting on thousand on top was fairly obviously to be able to cruise at 21,000 feet.”.

Which this only lead to a bigger question why did flight 2 specifically want to

cruise at 21,000 feet and not their changed level of 19,000 as the weather at the time

was no factor the only clouds were overcast at 15,000 feet (Nelson 73). Nelson states
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on page 74, he believes the reason Flight 2 decided to fly higher was that Flight 2 was

already behind schedule by 25 minutes, so they wished to flight higher as the higher the

plane is in altitude the less dense air is so they go faster.

Everything that is stated above from We Are Going In: The Story of the 1956

Grand Caynon Midair Collision is a general background of what happened before the

actual incident.

On page 109 Nelson states “At 10:59 the crew called into Las Vegas TWA radio

and reported that they had passed the intersection four minutes earlier at 10:55.” The

Intersection he is talking about is Lake Mohave Intersection, which is located in close

proximity to Lake Mohave an artificial lake.

These were checkpoints, otherwise also known as position reports. These were

made for dispatchers and controllers to track a flight’s progress so if it disappeared then

a search party would have a rough idea of where to look (Nelson 109).

One refinement that was made to these position reports was they also submitted

a rough idea of where they would make their next position report, along with a time

estimate of when it will be reported (Nelson 109). This gave authorities a second

boundary to help find a missing aircraft. If it is not heard from again within its estimated

time at the next point then they would have a rough are to look for a plane (Nelson 109).

At the time the position reports were also used by controllers to track where

flights were in relation to one another, but this was on so effective. This is one main

thing that helped in causing radio controllers to cover the U.S.

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Within TWA 2’s position report they advised in the report they were cruising at

21,000 feet. They also estimated that they would cross the “Painted Desert Line of

Position” or the “Painted Desert LOP” for short, at 11:31 (Nelson 110).

The last position report or transmission from TWA 2 was their Lake Mohave

Intersection report (Nelson 110). At 10:58 United 718 reported to Needles INSACS that

they were passing a checkpoint, they said they were cruising at 21,000 feet, and

estimate to reach the Painted Desert LOP at 11:31. No other normal radio contact was

made with United 718 (Nelson 110 & 111).

Salt Lake city ARTC had received both TWA 2’s and United 718’s position

reports with their estimated times of arrival to the Painted Desert LOP, which were both

cruising at 21,000 and estimated to arrive there at 11:31 (Nelson 111). The controller

who had received the reports was the same that was involved in denying TWA 2’s

request to cruise at 21,000.

The controller had talked to the Las Vegas ARTC mentioning the courses of

these two flights would cross, but he was not alarmed as this was not unusual for the

time, he also thought that one of the two planes would deviate to do the usual detour

over the canyon for sightseeing, or that one of the two would see the other and deviate

(Nelson 112).

There was a plane flying over and near the Grand Canyon this aircraft reported a

towering cumulonimbus cloud, which later had moved into TWA 2’s planned flight path,

and was north of United 718’s (Nelson 117 & 118).

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Both planes had ended up deviating from their flight plans to avoid a towering

cumulonimbus that was in their paths, when they came back to go into the original path

they collided.

Some of the passengers are on the left of the United DC-7 and the right of the

TWA constellation. The people that just so happened to be looking out of their windows

saw another plane headed towards theirs (Nelson 165). The cabin filled with screams

as shortly after the passengers said something the planes collided. The rear of the

constellation and the outer left wing of the DC-7 were destroyed (Nelson 165). The

collision of the two planes only last a split second, the results were crippling for both

planes. The DC-7 had a torn-up left wing and was missing its left engine, while the

constellation had no tail and had lost most of its roof Nelson 165).

The constellation having no tail soon after the collision began to no dive, and with

no elevators to pull to nose back to level it dove straight into the ground. Killing

everyone on board (Nelson 168). While the constellation plummeted toward the ground,

the DC-7 was doing a spiraling descent around its left wing. After the DC-7 had

descended over a mile they had entered the clouds into whiteout conditions (Nelson

173). They then realized they would not be able to pull out of the descent the plane was

in so the pilot Harms had prepared a mayday message to send to salt lake, but his

copilot had distracted him and the message was never sent. The message was only

nine words it read “Salt Lake. . . ah . . . Seven Eighteen . . . We are going in.” and that

was it (Nelson 174).

The FAA or the Federal Aviation Administration opened later the same year the

president Eisenhower sign the Airways Modernization Act in the year 1957. This simply
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made airliners required to have flight data recorders (CBS). This also had congress

trying to upgrade the surveillance system and improve the radar systems (NASA).

The NTSB also determined the cause of the crash was the pilots did not see

each other in time to avoid the collision, but this could have been stated for a lot of the

crashes that happened back then. Although for this crash it was a real answer as the

NTSB was unable to find any other possible causes of the crash while looking at all the

evidence (CBS).

In the 1920s’ radios and beacons started to be used to try and help make flying

safer. Though this was not going to be enough, in 1936 there was a series of accidents

and the Federal Government took it upon itself to provide en route coverage, local

coverage was still up to the airports to fix (A history of air traffic control provision in the

United States).

After world war 2 ATC had gone through a huge growth period, but there were

several high-profile accidents that occurred and caused worry for how safe the skies

really were. In the 1950s’ ATC radar was introduced (A history of air traffic control

provision in the United States).

For the ATC funding it was originally done annually by congress, but in the

1960s’ aviation had experienced rapid growth in air traffic so the demand for ATC

improvement was pressed. This posed a financial problem. In an effort to provide for the

ATC system the Airport and Airway Trust Fund or AATF was passed in 1970 (A history

of air traffic control provision in the United States). The funds for the AATF came from

taxes for plane fuel, and ticket taxes (A history of air traffic control provision in the

United States).
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In the late 1980s, there were the first attempts made to corporatize ATC in other

countries. New Zealand in 1987 was the first country to corporatize ATC.

In 1981 the FAA adopted the traffic collision avoidance system otherwise known

as TCAS, this was an improvement over the original Becoan-Based Collison Avoidance

System or BCAS. TCAS was established to be an airliner requirement in the late 1980s’

(NASA).

Also in 1981 on August 5th, there were less than ideal working conditions so the

Professional Air Traffic Controllers Union or PATCO refused to return to work. President

Regan fired all 11,345 striking controllers, he furthermore banned all of them from

federal service for life (NASA).

On September 11, 2001, the FAA ordered a system-wide ‘ground stop’. This was

a complete shut down of all aircraft inside U.S airspace. There were over 4,500 flights

redirected to the nearest airport. Within 2.5 hours all airspace had been cleared of

aircraft (NASA).

In the present time in ATC the are more than 15,000 highly trained men and

women, that helps to get 700 million passengers aboard 60 million aircraft each year to

get to their destinations safely (NASA).

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References

A history of air traffic control provision in the United States. The Eno Center for

Transportation. (n.d.). Retrieved November 9, 2021, from

https://www.enotrans.org/article/history-air-traffic-control-provision-united-states/.

CBS Interactive. (2014, July 8). 1956 Grand Canyon airplane crash a game-

changer. CBS News. Retrieved November 9, 2021, from

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/1956-grand-canyon-airplane-crash-a-game-changer/.

Nelson, M. (2017). We are going in: The story of the 1956 Grand Canyon Midair

collision. Rio Nuevo Publishers.

Secondary navigation. A Brief History of the FAA. (2017, January 4). Retrieved

October 14, 2021, from https://www.faa.gov/about/history/brief_history/.

The beginning of Air Traffic Control. Smithsonian National Air and Space

Museum. (n.d.). Retrieved October 14, 2021, from

https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/america-by-air/online/innovation/innovation12.cfm.

The History of Air Traffic control - NASA Ames - Home. (n.d.). Retrieved

November 10, 2021, from

https://hsi.arc.nasa.gov/groups/AOL/downloads/ATC_Timeline_Poster_testwave3.pdf.