I hope everyone’s Thanksgiving was as delicious as mine was. Thank you all that worked so that people could get home to their families safely.
Pilot Visit
Today we had the honor of hosting Tim Bendickson and his family. Tim is the pilot of N6122B, the VFR aircraft that got stuck in IFR conditions. He drove over 7 hours to come express his thanks to the Seattle Center Controllers that saved his life. This was an awesome example of how we at ZSE can work so well together to help people survive some of the most perilous situations. If you get a chance to review the FALCON, I recommend it but the short story is Tim departed VFR and quickly realized the weather was too poor to fly VFR. He turned around almost immediately to land but the weather already closed in behind him and the airport was solid IFR. He then radioed us for help. The Sector 8 controller did a great job getting him going towards VFR conditions but then Tim started to experience trouble and they knew they needed to get one of the pilot certified controllers to help further. Josh Fuller stepped in and talked to Tim for over an hour and a half guiding him to safety. He was having trouble maintaining altitude due to over one inch of ice that was accumulating all over the aircraft. Brian Hach assisted Josh, bringing up the sectionals and correlating the aircraft’s position to the mountains and unquestionably saved his life relaying this information to Josh. Mike Sellman helped tremendously by taking as many of the planes off the frequency as possible. Byron Andrews was an amazing resource to Josh and Brian, providing his C area expertise. Dave Murphy had control of the sector and stepped in to talk to any other non-emergency related aircraft. So amazing guys!
Holiday Party
Our Holiday Party is this next weekend, December 7th, at the Courtyard by Marriott Hotel in downtown Tacoma. I have invited all the facilities that are attached to ZSE, this will be a great opportunity to add to your NATCA family. If you need any more details, please see the flyer on the NATCA bulletin board or email me. If you are free that night, please come out!
TRB Class and IST Cadre needed
Due to a scheduling conflict, we are going to be doing the spring round of IST different, We need two volunteers to travel to the IST cadre class. Dates and location TBD but we do know it will be sometime in March or April and will require 3 days away from the facility. You would be teaching IST full time (in facility) during the spring IST dates of May 3-16 and must be available for the entire time.
TRB classes are now a joint NATCA/FAA class so they are no longer on the NATCA portal to sign up for. This is a good thing because you will no longer have to take leave to go but the bad thing is that these classes fill up quickly. Please let us know if this interests you, we need to keep a list of people that are willing to travel for a class.
New CPC
Last but not least, congrats to Ryan Jimenez, the C area’s newest CPC!
See you all at the Holiday Party :)
Amy Sizemore