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Saving Lives is all in a Day's Work for Alumnus Scott Dittamo

By Doug Church, NATCA

One afternoon four years ago, not long after graduating from Embry-Riddle [1998, Aerospace Studies] and taking his first air traffic controller job at Fort Lauderdale Executive Tower, Scott Dittamo was on a catwalk on break when he spotted a Comanche coming over the threshold and preparing to land. The aircraft’s landing gear was still up.

“I raced back inside the cab and got on the radio to advise the pilot about his gear,” Dittamo said. “That day in the tower I was training on the cab coordinator position and my trainer told me, ‘Always look for feet (landing gear) on the propeller-powered aircraft. The prop guys don’t have the warning systems, but the jets will always have feet.’”

Fast forward to the afternoon of July 24, 2004. Dittamo, in the final stages of his trainee program on the local control position at the busy Newark Tower, was looking out the window. “We had a (Boeing) 747 coming in,” he said. “You can point out a 747 easily on a clear day.” It was Air India Flight 145, with 409 passengers aboard.

“He was on five-mile final approach,” Dittamo remarked. “I saw him but I couldn’t see gear.” With his Fort Lauderdale trainer’s instructions in his head – ‘Always look for feet’ – Dittamo glanced in a different direction and then turned back to the 747 to look again. No gear. “I thought, something just doesn’t seem right,” he said. “In my mind, I said I would pick it up in my next scan. But then I looked up and the plane definitely had no gear.”

By this point, Flight 145 was on a half-mile final at an altitude of 600 feet. “I was surprised he didn’t go around,” Dittamo stated. “I was going to let it go for one more second, because this was a critical phase of the flight for the crew. But then I just said to myself, ‘I’m not going to let this go any longer.’ ”

Dittamo keyed the mike: “Air India 145, check gear down. Gear appears up.” The pilot acknowledged the transmission with a calm, “Air India 145.” Down came the gear and the 747 landed safely on Runway 4R.

“Holy cow!” said another controller in the tower, realizing that Dittamo had just prevented a possible disaster. Several other pilots on the frequency, taxiing or waiting to take off, heard the transmissions and instantly knew the importance of his actions to catch a very rare occurrence. One pilot said on the frequency, “Give that controller a raise!” Another said, “Give him a time-off award!” A third offered a succinct compliment: “Hey, tower, good catch.”

Newark Tower Acting Manager Michael Wagner was more effusive. “His alertness and timely action may have prevented a possible gear-up landing,” Wagner wrote of Dittamo – now a fully certified controller at Newark – on a time-off award recommendation form.

After his shift was over, Dittamo called his old trainer, who now works at Miami Tower, to report a slight correction to the advice he was given back in Fort Lauderdale: “Jets don’t always have feet.”

Dittamo was one of 12 air traffic controllers around the United States who received an Archie League Medal of Safety from the National Air Traffic Controllers Association in 2005.

Meet Scott Dittamo