The Letter "E"

My ATC En Route Experience

The morning I’ll remember forever was sky blue, with puffy clouds overhead. Lingering scents of jet fuel stained my hands. I was at work, inspecting an air medical helicopter at a remote facility. Routinely, I preferred to hang out at the base for a bit—usually until the crew got their first flight call. I’d just finished sweeping the floor in the hangar when I stopped to check my email.

“Tentative Offer Letter”

After nearly a year, I’d finally received the best news one could dream of. It was surreal. The email was regarding my having passed the ATSA (Air Traffic Skills Assessment) months prior. Actually, the third time was the charm. I’d finally gotten the WQ, or Well Qualified, score I was seeking. On the first test, I ranked Qualified, and the second was nullified due to the removal of the Alaska bid.

I was ecstatic about this monumental shift, but what awaited me was simply unknown. There was excitement coupled with underlying anxiety. Of course, I had already accumulated nearly a decade of aviation experience. I’d flown a helicopter solo at nineteen, fixed airplanes and helicopters for a living, and survived the horrors of dispatching air medical aircraft as a side quest. My background made me believe I had prepared for this better than most.

“En Route”

Air Traffic Control has various avenues, but at the Academy, there are two pathways: Tower and En Route. After weeks of researching what was all new to me, I realized that I had been assigned the path that best matched the career and financial future I had begun imagining. I’d made plans to move to Salt Lake City and buy an airplane to continue my flight training when I wasn’t pushing tin. I’d made financial estimates, looked at housing in the area, and the dream had settled into my heart before I realized it.

After a few months of background checks, psychological and physical exams, and other testing to prove I was “the guy,” it was time to leave. I’d passed everything with flying colors. The hard part was letting go of a job that I truly cherished in order to pursue something greater. This was a big decision for me. Would I regret it? Would it be worth it in the end? The FAA was requesting that I be in Oklahoma City within six months of my exam results. For those who don’t know how slowly the government operates, this timeline was virtually unheard of.

So I hooked up my trailer to my pickup truck and set off into the highway system. My first stop was Fort Smith, Arkansas. There was a campground at the top of a mountain that looked like a cool place to stop along the way. The trees were big enough to make my Starlink connection unusable—and that’s how I wanted it. I wanted to stop, reflect on my life’s achievements, and exist in solitude, if only for a brief moment, before facing months of nonstop testing.

Later that night, atop the mountain, I was awoken by sirens. Looking out my window, I saw a police car speeding through the quiet park I’d grown familiar with during the few hours prior. I checked my phone, and the signal was dead. Clueless as to what was going on, I discovered through a neighbor that there were storm warnings for the area.

“Tornadoes at the top of a mountain?” I thought. “That’s strange.”

But I’d heard of stranger things before. Well, maybe not.

So I hunkered down as the winds picked up significantly and unlocked my war chest to retrieve my night-vision monocular and the helmet I’d built a few months prior. To my amazement, there was something to be seen. Not space aliens or satellites orbiting in a single file. It wasn’t a high-altitude tornado either. No, it was something simpler.

“Deer.”

Eventually, as the clock hands pulled closer to the early morning hour of 0300, I decided the risk was worth it and finally got some much-needed sleep.

Turns out, I would need it.

The Academy wasn’t what I’d expected it to be or even look like, based on my Google Maps research. There was a peculiar calmness that surprised me more than anything. There were people from all walks of life, and the parking lot confirmed this. Some had expensive vehicles, and others were falling apart. The entire experience slowly gave me a peculiar impression, similar to my journey toward the center of the nation. Nothing was normal. There was a subtle chaos in the air, hiding beneath the surface. I could feel it as soon as I set foot on government property.

After the first month, I’d passed the general portion of the basic course. It covered concepts that were both foreign and familiar to me, yet it was still somewhat difficult when I took the first exam. From everything I’d gathered from peers walking the hallways, the biggest battle was yet to come. The score at the Academy was cumulative, so everything from there onward compounded. If I did poorly on one exam, I had a chance to boost my odds on another. Vice versa.

My first day in Non-Radar training felt like boot camp, a stark contrast to the more relaxed and slower pace—if you could call it that—of the basic course. We were expected to show up and show out. This wasn’t a game, even though it literally was. If my class and I were to pass and go on to become some of the chosen ones, we’d have to sharpen up.

And fast.

There was a new concept every day. Non-Radar training was unique in that there were paper strips in a washboard-looking thing, a red-and-black flip-flop pen—which I later tried to sell for ten dollars each to kids in Basics—a headset, and a sense of understanding what was going on when you had no idea what was actually happening. More importantly, it required a willingness to admit you had no clue, even if it meant being berated in front of the entire class.

After the first week, two students voluntarily resigned. The level of stress was much higher than at dispatch. Every morning, my heart was pounding. I was nervous to an extent resembling shell shock. It was not for the faint. In fact, even the strong seemed meant to break. That was the entire point of the course, I reasoned.

So I stayed calm, at least on the surface, and tried to lead my peers into battle. I offered encouragement and certainty when they needed it most, even if it took every last ounce of my own composure to reassure them. The last straw for everyone may have been the tiny black spiders crawling all over the strip boards during practice. I saw it as another test of internal strength, if any remained.

The day finally arrived for Non-Radar evaluations. I wasn’t nervous. I was simply waiting and tired. The air conditioner in my trailer kept tripping the breaker panel every night, and I was only getting a handful of hours of sleep during the week leading up to those evaluations. Luckily, I’d become acquainted with caffeine pills during my long-distance drives across the United States. So I relied on them that particular day to stay sharp. I had even tested their efficacy in the days prior, gauging their effect and determining how long I’d last before taking another or becoming completely fried.

The moment arrived, and I walked into the room for testing. I came out with a score in the low sixties. Not terrible, but not what I knew I was capable of. I’d stayed every day the facilities were open, practicing with peers in the Non-Radar lab. I certainly should have finished better than that, but not to worry.

I had one more chance.

On the final Non-Radar evaluation, I walked in and sat down. The FAA logo on my polo shirt was scratching the upper-left portion of my chest. Annoyed, I adjusted it to get more comfortable before the onslaught.

Before I could begin, though, the examiner leaned toward me and stated that he was going to take off points for wearing an FAA shirt on exam day.

“Guess I didn’t get the memo,” I said aloud.

Inside, I thought, “This guy is a douchebag,” but I tried not to let it bother me.

Yet, it did.

In the end, I scored so low that I was concerned I had failed at that very moment, before I could even reach the Radar lab. Before I ever had a fighting chance.

I considered reporting the comment, but a peer told me to let it go. I was unconvinced the federal government would do anything anyway. What would they do? Let me retake it, as though that would help? Non-Radar wasn’t something you could wait a week and try again. It required constant training, memorization, and mental maintenance.

When I told people what had happened, they were shocked by the comment. Still, after checking my cumulative score, I calculated that if I could pass each of the three upcoming Radar evaluations and the remaining exams with scores around seventy, I would remain within passing range.

Behind the scenes, I was distracted. I replayed the sequence repeatedly and lost sleep for several nights. Eventually, I came up with an excuse. I was familiar with FAA testing through earning my airframe and powerplant certifications and knew that seventy was generally the minimum passing score.

That was my justification, at least.

A few weeks into the Radar environment, I had become significantly more confident. Being behind a keyboard was where I could shine. In the past, I’d gone head-to-head with some of the worst 911 calls imaginable. Typing was subconscious. The tips of my fingers had given me the voice you read now, one that simply presses the buttons as words enter my mind.

I’d learned that there were two controllers per console. The D-side, which I was training for, acted more as an assistant. The R-side, or Radar controller, spoke to aircraft and controlled traffic. Eventually, once I moved on to my facility and gained experience, I would progress into the R-side role.

Or so I learned.

The first few Radar simulations were insane. Weeks of studying Standard Operating Procedures and Letters of Agreement, along with practicing flight-plan entries in the basement Radar lab, went out the window. I was simply trying to keep my head above water for fifteen minutes.

I’d walk out of that room completely disheveled, as though I’d been beaten and voluntarily waterboarded.

Slowly, my speed began to increase. Things started to slow down enough for me to understand what was coming next and what I should do three, even four, steps ahead. It was like chess. I hoped that my well-spent break time walking around the third floor playing chess—while dodging protruding legs in the hallway, trash bins, and actual fecal matter—would assist me.

Toward the end of Radar simulations, after accumulating enough simulation time to feel as though I possessed a modicum of knowledge and fast critical-thinking ability, the pace intensified even further.

These problems were hard.

I don’t think I’d ever talked that fast or thought on my feet like that in my life. Still, the feedback I received from the proctors was reassuring.

“Mason, you have what it takes to be an air traffic controller. You just need to slow down.”

I didn’t slow down. I did try, but I couldn’t. I was used to responding immediately.

Once the first Radar evaluation began, I was so nervous that I forgot to pull strips down and didn’t preload an aircraft, so I could cancel the block after it went VFR. I lost fifteen points unnecessarily.

Unfortunately, I only took one evaluation that day, while two-thirds of the class took two. I was going to have to take another first thing the following morning, and the last one in the late afternoon. Not ideal.

But I was confident, having scored above eighty on the first evaluation.

The second day started quickly, and I was slightly more confident because of the day prior. I entered that room absolutely locked in.

I left feeling as though I had just been kicked by a horse and pickpocketed.

Stupid mistakes. Dumb things I wished I had seen sooner.

Through speculation online and among peers, we believed there were three levels of tests: easy, medium, and hard. I quickly understood that the second one was my hardest. But not all was lost. I had scored somewhere around sixty, which meant I still needed approximately seventy on the final evaluation to pass.

My spirits were low, and over lunch I rationalized that there was a real possibility I wouldn’t make it. It was true. I am very honest, especially with myself, even when that is one of the hardest things humans can do for themselves.

My friend reminded me that I was still in it to win it. They hadn’t escorted me off the property yet, so I still had a fighting chance. All I could do was lean into that. There weren’t many other options besides having faith in the Lord and trusting that I had what it took.

The final evaluation arrived. I think my hands were shaking when I sat down, but that slowly went away when I pushed my talk button and leaned back to receive the pass-down.

Once the evaluation started, my mind shifted into game mode.

It was make or break.

The previous six months came down to a handful of minutes. I had to put aside the fact that some of my peers had disappeared after their evaluations, seemingly having failed before they even had a chance to complete the final one.

So I saw the moment as a blessing: at least I had the opportunity to see it through.

I had practiced emergency-aircraft procedures so thoroughly that I knew them like the back of my hand. I could name every step with complete accuracy in my sleep.

Then it hit.

An aircraft declared an emergency and requested a turnaround back to the departure airport.

Blank strip.

Start writing.

Tell R-side.

Tell the supervisor.

Call to notify the adjacent airspace.

I did it without thinking.

And I did it perfectly.

Then another aircraft requested a vector around the weather and reported turbulence. Write that down, tell R-side, and continue.

I was effective. I was firing on all cylinders.

At least, that was true until everything unraveled.

An aircraft departed from an airport within my airspace, and I had to enter its flight plan into the computer system. If the flight plan wasn’t entered, the aircraft would still track on the screen, but the warning system would not flash early enough before it became too late. You had to visually identify two aircraft on converging courses and tell the R-side to fix the situation before separation was lost.

I was typing the flight plan into the drop box when another situation required my attention. So I pressed Enter, dealt with it, and then returned to finish the flight plan by scrolling through the history to pick up where I’d left off.

The route this particular aircraft took was very short and westbound. From the ground to the next airspace was probably five minutes. I mentally determined the point on the map, estimated the number of miles from the nearest waypoint, looked at the clock, entered the time, finished adding the remaining pertinent details, and pressed Enter.

“Flight plan failed.”

At that moment, I visually recognized the converging aircraft on the screen, but the other aircraft was still in the lower airspace. I had time.

Not much, but I had time.

I dealt with a military aircraft, I think, that was approaching a boundary edge and required notification to the adjacent airspace. Then I returned to the flight plan and saw that it was too late.

The warning started flashing before I had enough time to resolve it.

I kept pushing through, despite this hiccup; I felt that I’d done well with a few mistakes here and there. Nothing earth-shattering or plane-crashing.

The final evaluation ended, and I was feeling relatively good despite the airspace and aircraft violation caused by the failed flight plan. I completed my pass-down without error and put down my pens.

I heard a sigh.

Oh, no.

“Okay, so you ran that evaluation really well, but you missed the flight plan, which caused the airspace and aircraft error. You probably know that already. But—and I don’t even think you realized it—the aircraft that departed from Greenwood requested one-three thousand instead of three thousand.”

I had missed it completely.

Some warnings were redundant. If the R-side already understood that certain aircraft would eventually converge while maintaining separation, there was no reason to keep the warning displayed once they were aware of it.

However, because the system had logged one-three thousand, I failed to recognize that the aircraft was climbing through the altitudes of multiple aircraft already in the airspace.

So that was that.

I leaned back after six months of hard work. Studying every day, every night, and every weekend.

It was all over.

I was relieved, as a matter of fact. Sure, there was a lingering sadness, but I was just grateful for the opportunity to be in rooms that 99.9% of the world will never step foot in. I didn’t feel bad about missing the intentional readback error. I had caught many of them before, so I knew to listen carefully and confirm whenever I was uncertain. But, as I stated earlier, I am honest with myself. If I made a mistake and failed to hear something I should have heard, that happens. This is why redundancy is built into the system.

But that still was not what unraveled everything.

The truth was that failing to enter the flight plan—and receiving two separation errors because of it—was why I barely missed passing. Had I earned fifteen more points on that evaluation, I would have passed and moved on to my next facility.

“69%”

For days, I racked my brain, trying to reconstruct the blurry moments of that final evaluation and understand why the flight plan had failed.

Then I remembered.

When I returned to the unfinished flight plan after dealing with the other situations, I had reached the portion requiring the distance and time.

I do not remember placing the letter “E” before the time.

That was the character used to log the En Route time. Once an aircraft was airborne, the “P,” which stood for Proposal time, was no longer applicable. The letter “E” indicated that the aircraft was already en route.

Could it really have been that simple?

I cannot prove it. The final evaluation had already begun dissolving into a blur by the time I left the room. But after replaying those moments for days, one explanation remained.

I believe I was so busy that I omitted the letter “E” before the clock time. Without it, the system rejected the flight plan. Without the flight plan, the warning appeared too late.

After practicing the same procedure for so many hours, it was difficult to believe.

But I remain convinced that is what happened.

In a matter of minutes, the future I had already constructed disappeared: the facility, Salt Lake City, the airplane, the salary, and the career I believed would carry me through the rest of my working life.

Not because I lacked the ability.

Not because I had failed to prepare.

But because, under pressure, precision failed at the worst possible moment.

Perhaps because I forgot to press one key.

The letter “E.”