You’d think they would make it less obvious than that if they wanted to hide a conspiracy.
Funny how they always think that there are some intricate hidden conspiracies, yet that they are obvious enough that some dumbasses on Facebook can figure it out.
It wasn’t his first day, it was his first full day. His first day on Monday was likely getting his ID card etc. I’m sure people just like how it sounds saying it was his first day instead.
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.
As far as I can recall, no further attacks were prevented. I disagree with calling it “pointless”, because it was the right decision given what was known at the time.
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
Terrible first day, but he had a senior position at New York TRACON (which controls nearly all air traffic in New York) for years before getting the federal position. He was definitely experienced.
If it did, it could only have been a positive effect. From a logistics standpoint, what happened that day is nothing short of astounding. Less than 3 hours after making the decision, the ENTIRE US airspace was cleared of all commercial traffic. 4500 planes were re-routed and grounded at a time of extreme uncertainty. It may have been his first day, but the guy did his job flawlessly.
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