ATC Recording of Air Force One Landing in Ottawa

by Brian on 3/10/2009

air-force-one-landingHere is the recording I made of the ATC radio chatter during Air Force One’s approach to Ottawa International.  The first thing you will notice is that the Air Force One pilot does not ask the controller what runway to land on, or permission even to land, he tells the controller what runway he will land on.  Sorry for the quality as I recorded this quickly using an iRiver held up close to a PC speaker. Also I edited out a lot of the silence to make the file shorter.

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  • J
    He does not request permission because he was on an Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) flight plan. Ottawa Approach told him which runway to expect, which is why, when your recording starts, he says that he already has intercepted the glide slope, which is the Instrument Landing System (ILS). It would usually go something like this (I don't use Air Force One callsign, because that is irrelevant. The same procedures would apply for any airplane on IFR. I'm also making up the frequencies...)

    ATC: Delta 323, altimeter 29.95, descend 7,000, expect vectors for ILS runway 32 approach. Contact Ottawa Approach on 125.35.
    DL323: Down to 7-thou, expecting ILS for runway 32, approach on twenty five, thirty-five. Delta 323, g'day

    DL323 (on Ottawa Approach): Ottawa Approach, DL323, with you, descending 7000.
    Ottawa Approach: DL323, good afternoon, radar contact. altimeter 29.94.

    Ottawa Approach: DL323, you are 20 miles southeast. turn left heading 3-6-0. Cleared for the ILS approach, runway 32. Descend and maintain 3000 until established. Tower frequency 119.90.
    DL323: Left to 360. Cleared for the ILS 32. Descend and maintain 3000 until established. switching to tower on nineteen-nine.

    DL323 (on Tower Freq): Ottawa Tower, DL323 at the outer marker inbound, established on glide slope ILS runway 32.
    Ottawa Tower: DL323, good afternoon, make straight-in. Caution traffic in the vicinity.

    DL323: Make straight-in for 32, 323.

    Ottawa Tower: DL 323, you are cleared to land runway 32. ..

    So, as you can see, an airplane would have been cleared to make an approach to a runway from some other controller. That controller would have been coordinating with the tower off the air letting them know what runway had been assigned. So it's not AF1 telling the tower what he wants to do, as much as it is just relaying and confirming what had been told to him b the previous controller.

    Thanks for the sound.

    Best,
    J
  • Thanks J, that makes sense. So would "ATC" in the dialog above be the Centre? In the case of CYOW I believe it's Montreal Centre that is the regional controller. So a controller from Montreal Centre would have given AF1 instructions on which runway to use.
  • Sarah
    Obama's also had two helicopters patrol his arrival to Parliament. I found the snipers on the roof tops more interesting. There were some people from Russian that came to see his visit to Ottawa when he arrived. The cookie shop I watched him buy his daughters cookies at is now taking orders from all over the world from people who wanted the very same cookies.

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