Posted by Every airport has one particular building that seems to shoot high into the sky. It’s a place the average person cannot enter, giving it a mysterious aura. We’re talking about the air traffic control tower! We all have heard of it and know that it’s important, but why exactly?🙄
That is the question our post today seeks to answer! 👏🏻The 17th edition of Aviation Fun Facts: What does the air traffic control tower actually do?
Control Towers, the traffic officers and guardians of the sky
Do you know when plane crashes are most likely to happen? It’s when airplanes take off or land. ☝🏻More precisely, during the 3 minutes of take off and 8 minutes of landing, dubbing this period as the “11 minutes of evil”. The control tower plays a role in helping airplanes safely take off and land during the “11 minutes of evil”.
As their name suggests, air traffic controllers that work in the air traffic control towers ultimately help to control air traffic. They help prevent accidents by controlling the space between aircrafts, landing order, altitude, travel speeds, etc. They also help aid in smoother take-offs and landings by checking and relaying important information to the aircraft pilots, such as weather, cloud altitudes, and runway surface conditions.
So we now know that control towers help to protect the skies and prevent accidents by making important real-time decisions and relaying critical information. They are absolutely essential for safe air travel. 🙏🏻Next, let’s learn specifically about Incheon Airport’s air traffic control towers.
What do Incheon Airport Control Towers do?
Of course Incheon Airport ✈ has its own air traffic control towers. In fact, did you know that there are three of them in total?😎There’s the Incheon Control Tower at the center of the airport and two apron control towers, one in the Boarding Building and one in Passenger Terminal 2. The Incheon International Airport Corporation is in charge of operating Apron Control Tower 1 and Apron Control Tower 2.
As mentioned earlier, the Incheon Control Tower helps manage take-offs and landings on the runway. The apron control towers also play their own important roles. The apron control towers are additionally responsible for everything that happens on the ground to ensure the safety of the aircrafts.
Apron control towers oversee ground-level operations from the authorization of rear-towing of aircrafts, ground movement control, aircraft towing control, aircraft vehicle guidance support, and ground vehicle control. In addition, they play a role in aiding safe ground movement regardless of weather or season by using aviation lights and anti-ice systems. Whether it’s controlling what’s in the sky or on the ground, Incheon Airport is working hard to keep everyone safe. 🧐
Incheon Airport sees over 1,000 aircrafts take off and land in a day. In other words, there’s about one aircraft taking off or landing every 1-2 minutes.😮We are able to see so many planes safely land and take off thanks to the hard work of our control tower and apron control towers! 🙏🏻
We all knew that control towers and airport apron control towers were important, but not all of us knew exactly why that was the case. We hope our 17th edition of Aviation Fun Facts, “What does the control tower actually do?”, was able to enlighten you on the subject! ☺ We feel extra grateful towards air traffic controllers working hard at Incheon Airport’s control towers and the apron control towers.
We’ll be back with more interesting content on the Incheon Airport blog!