Kids Controlling The Skies

    Ok...Now tell me if I'm being too critical. But kids controlling our skies?
    Yes, that's the latest uproar in our now juvenile skies. Word from the Federal Aviation Administration that it is investigating children giving all-important air traffic information to veteran pilots, putting in jeopardy the lives of passengers, crew members and people on the ground.
    What has the aviation industry come to? Kids controlling our skies?
    As unbelievable as it seems, word leaked out this week that an air traffic controller who brought his kids to work, allowed the pint-sized youngsters to chime in on the microphones and guide airplanes in one of the most heavily traveled air spaces -- New York. But it didn't happen just once. The next day, according to the Associated Press, the controller brought a second child to dot it all over again,  putting in peril the lives of many.
    As broadcast on national television, you could hear the children blurting out instructions to airlines like Jet Blue and Aero Mexico pilots maneuvering around the Kennedy International Airport.
    What amazes me, is that not once do you hear any of the pilots being instructed by the elementary-school kids, question the tower as to the validity of the instructions. In fact, in the recordings, you can hear the pilots chuckle and tell the adult controller that they wished they could bring their children to work. Can you see it now? Children sitting in the cockpit flying the airplane you are a passenger on? 
    Meanwhile, unbeknown to the passengers and flight attendants aboard those aircraft, their lives were put into jeopardy.
    First it was a conductor of a commuter train texting his friends while controlling the locomotive and crashing head on into an oncoming train in Los Angeles, then it was pilots chit-chatting about things unrelated to the control of their plane that eventually crashed in Buffalo, New York. Now this?
    According to the FAA, the controller and supervisor had been placed on paid leave while the investigation ensues. And rightfully so.
   Meanwhile, the FAA has also temporarily nixed unofficial visits by friends of relatives to FAA air traffic control towers.
    What probably started out as something very innocent on behalf of the FAA control tower, has now turned into an all-out controversy. The controller should be fired. If a pilot let his or her child control the aircraft they are responsible for, I'm certain they would lose their license and their wings clipped.
    There is no room for children dickering around with this type of business. One that has many lives at stake.
    We shall stay tuned to see what the outcome will be.