PEACHTREE CITY, Ga. — An air traffic controller is being hailed as a hero after guiding a pilot to safety in some very bad conditions.
The drama over north Georgia began at the DeKalb Peachtree Airport.
The pilot tried to land there, but because of bad weather and failing instruments in his cockpit, he couldn't.
He headed to Rome and lucky for him had air traffic controller Derek Bittman guiding him.
Channel 2's Tony Thomas sat down with Bittman and listened to the tapes.
Pilot: "Uh, yes sir. I'm still not able to, uh, find this airport and, uh, getting low on fuel, kind of a desperate situation here."
Thomas asked Bittman what was going through his mind. Bittman told Thomas, "I want to help the guy out. I don't want to be the reason someone gets hurt."
Bittman said the incident still makes him nervous. He told Thomas as he sat behind his radar scope in Hampton, he knew this was a life and death situation
"I think he was bringing a used plane to someone who bought it and it's just like buying a used car, you never know what you're gonna get," Bittman said.
On the tapes you hear Bittman asking the pilot "If you can't make this approach at Rome do you want to go, try and go somewhere else? Do you have a plan B?"
Pilot: "This was plan B, one-one November."
The pilot had only enough fuel for one more attempt to land. But by that point it was dark. He was in the clouds and couldn't see a thing. So, from about 100 miles away, Bittman tried to guide the pilot in for his fourth and last shot. "His information was incorrect so he kept wanting to fly off to the west and I had to correct his course for him," Bittman said.
Bittman: "November one-one November, increase the rate of descent, appears you're, uh, left of course and going farther left. Turn five degrees right."
Then the plane disappeared off Bittmans radar. but about fifteen seconds later Brittman said he heard the pilot say "Airport in sight! Atlanta, thank you sir."
For his actions, Bittman recently won the air traffic controller associations highest award.
"Every time I think or hear about it I get nervous, but I'm just glad it worked out for everybody," Bittman said.
In the last few days, Bittman and the pilot met for the first time.
The pilot didn't want to sit down for an interview, but wrote "The lessons that I learned from this trip will follow me for the rest of my aviation career. I never want to experience what occurred that night ever again."
WSBTV
