Student pilot flying first cross country trip gets caught in nationwide ground stop
Student pilot Mosab Nadi was completing the third leg of his first solo cross-country flight in the Fort Worth, Texas, area when the nationwide ground stop happened Friday.
“Ma’am I’m a student pilot. Honestly, this is my first time doing solo cross country and I don’t know what to do,” Nadi is heard telling an air traffic controller in now-viral ATC audio.
Although Nadi had done takeoffs and landings by himself before, Friday was a crucial day: he was doing his first solo cross-country, meaning he would fly 150 nautical miles across three different airports by himself, he said.
Student pilot has to land plane solo, atc audio shows
The 32-year-old was about to land at Hicks Airfield after a successful three consecutive flights to complete the trip when he heard there was a ground stop.
“My initial thought was maybe there’s an accident at Hicks. There’s some type of incident and it’s not safe to land,” he said. “I mean it’s tough to imagine something like this would happen.”
At that point, Nadi said he decided to fly over the airport and above a nearby lake to have some time to communicate with air traffic control and figure out what was happening.
“The plane is going to be flying, right? But I mean, where is the plane going to take you? That’s why you need to stay ahead. You need to have a plan on what to do next,” Nadi said.
The initial panic heard in his voice came because the experience was new to Nadi, he said, but he quickly calculated that he had enough fuel to land at another airport if needed.
The controller then advises Nadi to land at Hicks in the ATC audio and explains the ground stop is nationwide, but adds that she cannot be the one to clear him for landing, as that needs to come from a different person. She advises him to switch to Hicks’ advisory frequency.
“It was a smooth, nice landing,” Nadi said. “I cannot believe what happened. Once I landed (at Hicks), I was like, ‘what’s going on?’”
Source: www.cnn.com
