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air traffic control
Most air traffic control towers close at night. The air traffic, you may have noticed, does not.
Think about the night time flights you've taken. Where have you taken off from? Where have you landed?
Unless they've been major hubs, there's a strong possibility the pilot was on their own to coordinate things, make sure they're safely away from other planes in the sky, and even turn on the lights of the landing strip once they arrived at the destination.
On top of, ya know, flying the plane.
This info is coming to us courtesy of TikTok user @doaviation who often posts about the aviation industry.
In a recent video, he stitched with another user who asked what insider industry info people knew that the general public would be shocked to learn.
And yeah, color us surprised.
People were understandably un-thrilled with the idea that most of the airports in the U.S. just close up their air traffic control towers at night and go home.
Air traffic doesn't close at night. Why would the control towers?
Shouldn't air traffic controllers be around to, like, control air traffic?
No? Pilots are just zipping around up there all willy-nilly?
Relatable Anxiety.
@doaviation/TikTok
@doaviation/TikTok
@doaviation/TikTok
@doaviation/TikTok
@doaviation/TikTok
@doaviation/TikTok
But aviation lovers weren't about to let us all freak ourselves out over this.
Turns out this has been standard practice for ages, but planes and helicopters aren't regularly crashing into one another in the night sky.
Firstly, he said MOST airports in the US - but the major hubs that carry the bulk of passenger flights are staffed with controllers 24/7.
Those controllers cover more than enough area to keep our skies at least somewhat monitored at night.
Also, pilots are pretty invested in not crashing into one another and have multiple systems in place to prevent it. The bulk of a pilots learning hours are done at uncontrolled airports. The entire "learn to fly" process prepares them for this.
They say education is the best way to battle fear, so let's learn.
@doaviation/TikTok
@doaviation/TikTok
@doaviation/TikTok
So this got us thinking, there have got to be tons of interesting but also kind of terrifying bits of industry knowledge out there.
We want to hear about it all.
If you've got one, let us know in the comments!