i live in new jersey. GIVE THE GUY A MEDAL. what is the big deal? the dad was there , told him what to say. done. the kid saw where his dad works, stop this nickel and dime nonsense. have we all forgotten we were all kids once?boy, my dad was a butcher, car mechanic. this kid´s dad is an airtraffic controller. better than a ball player. TERE ARE OTHER BTHINGS WE SHOULD BE CONCERNED ABOUT.

While not condoning the actions of the Air-traffic-Controller one item seems to be missing from the CNN report. All of the planes were on the ground. I truly believe that the father of these boy took the necessary precations and monitored the children carefully. This does not excuse the stupidity of his actions. I suppose you could relate this to the time my father took me to an Army base in Canada and I was actually allowed to sit in a tank. It was cool but if I had started the engine I might not have this opportunity of giving you my opinion.

Give the guy a week off without pay and LET IT DROP.

mICHAEL

I seriously doubt that these children where not fully supervised in there conversations with pilots in cockpits. The dialog is professional and beyond the norm for untrained children. Comparisons to an incident in Russia in which a pilot had his sun sit in the cockpit are unparalleled and unjust to the airport employee being scrutinized.

If this was not a subject for national television I doubt anyone would care.
Not even reporter can give an unbiased opinion as they to are under scrutiny for any opinion put forward.

I am an european pilot and fly regularly to JFK.
JFK (Tower) Cotrollers rank among the best in the world. They are 200% able to judge if a little son could squize in or pass on a harmless message to a pilot. We should all take much more time for our sons and daughters and show them what we do at work.
The comparison with the russian incident does not fit here.
All the best
Dejan

There are many ways in which controllers can be and daily get influenced in their work and this is not one of them.
To state that it is dangerous because a pilot let a child hit the wrong switch and the plane crashed borders on hysteria, it is a completely different situation.
It looks more like the controllers and their superiors are to be congratulated for having enough surplus capacity to be able to bring a child a lifetime experience.
Many good towers have visitors´ programmes, stop making everybody´s lives miserable.

So really – what did the ATC guy do wrong? There was no emergency, no crisis, and no complaint from the pilots. Imagine how much fun it was for the child, and how he will remember this for the rest of his life. Had there been an emergency, I am sure the controller would have NOT relayed instructions through his son...

If I were an air traffic controller, I would do the same thing (again).

Let's get over ourselves... Did he break any rules?... None that currently exist. Let's focus on Real Problems like bombs on flights and true National Security threats!!

I do not think dad was having coffee and reading the newspaper while his son was using the microphone. It is quite natural that the father takes his son to work and teach what he does. The pilot's voice is calm because they know that there is nothing to worry.

For sure this was not a threat to any airplane. But it shows a disrespect to the job of air traffic controllers.
What shocks me more is the over-reaction (typical USA) to ban all unofficial visits in the control towers in the USA. Does the administration trust those people that much based of just one incident?

If the FAA is really interested in preventing these kind of things happening, they should just ban all visitors from the tower, period. I seriously believe, that the childrens' father was ALWAYS in control of the situation and isn't to blame in the SLIGHTEST. He just wanted to show his workplace to his offspring... No harm done.

I think the entire affair is being blown totally out of proportion, nobody would complain if a child'd blow the horn on a fire truck, while the thing is standing at the station.

Either way, I think that apart from this incident, any air-traffic control tower is a high-risk security zone, which should be treated as such. Keep unauthorized personnel OUT of the tower!!!

Seriously people, this is really so silly.....Do away with Bring your kId to work day!!!! LOL.... This kid had people around and to make sure did the right thing!!!! What about Obama's kid playing a day as the President....You know....so much going on in this world, and we pay so much attention on this story???? Makes me ashamed to be a American, so without substance.....Shallow!!!!

I agree with Joey...well said........get a real life!!!! and I watch this stuff on CNN?????

Hala, you and errol just said we should share everything,i just want to say happybirthday,your birthday was on last monday right?you have been away for sometime now,i really miss your face on CNN. welcome back!

Well I have to say it was cute & stupid all rolled into 1. Sure, hearing the kids give instructions to the pilots is cute & it even makes you chuckle. But in the bigger scheme of things, there are many lives depending on ithese instructions. Yes, we can be thankful nothing happened but it's too big a risk to have it happen again.

Should the guy be fired? No! Give him a slap on the wrist & a week's suspension. Fire him if it happens again. Otherwise, it's the end of the story. Take the kid to work, just don't let him/her play w/ the equipment.

It is one thing to bring your child to work; however it is something totally different allowing a child to control air traffic. The father should be disciplined, and the supervisor fired. At the same time a thorough investigation should be conducted to find out how in the world this happened and stop it from ever happening again.

It is not a big deal, air port security is aware that an employee working in the air traffic control has taken his children into the air port control tower. Children are always demanding and naturally an air port controller's children will always be keen to know what his father's job and responsibilities are like. By speaking to the air pilot who was was waiting to take off, children will learn the high responsibility his parents are at work, when working in air port towers. It is always better for employers and institutions to allow once in a life time, at least for the employees to take their children's to their work place. It will develop a better relation with their children and create good families working for their institutions.

A very good example is that, I am on a holiday now with my daughter's family. The other day, in the morning I heard my grand daughter who is four years old refusing to go to her pre-school any more. So my daughter who was getting ready to go for work, asked her the reason. She replied that nothing is taught new every day in her pre- school. It looks like that alphabets are taught like A for apple B for boy and so on, instead of making a change each day, like A for arithmetic B for biography. So my daughter told her daughter that she will speak to the teacher and get the school to teach new, new things daily. Grand daughter agreed and went to school every day happily without any arguments.