Alec Garinger, Felicia Sova – West Area – July 2020

On July 4, 2020 Alec Garinger was working at the Washington (AWG) sector and Felicia Sova was working at Iowa City (IOW) sector, combined with LOWLI and HAWKS. Felicia and Alec, both new CPC’s, heard N850R requesting assistance on guard frequency. They were unable to find any information about the aircraft when searching in Chicago Center’s systems. After hearing more calls and attempting to respond, they found they were unable to reach N850R directly on guard, so Felicia brought the situation to the attention of Griff Gettemy, the West Area Supervisor. Alec was talking to FlexJet 94 (LJX94, GLEX) at 43,000 feet who stated that he could communicate with N850R on guard. Alec requested that the pilot of LXJ94 ask the pilot of N850R for his location. LXJ94’s pilot could be heard transmitting on guard, and N850R responded that he was on the “13 radial of India Romeo Kilo, 33 miles”, which is outside of Chicago Center’s airspace in Kansas City Center (ZKC). The pilot of N850R also stated that he is destined for Iowa City, IA. Felicia immediately called ZKC to ask if they knew about the aircraft. ZKC stated that they didn’t hear any transmissions on guard and also didn’t have any information on the plane, but that they would start looking for them. Felicia passed along the information that she and Alec had gathered so that ZKC could start looking for the aircraft. A short time later Alec, Felicia, and Griff received confirmation that ZKC was able to establish contact with N850R to assist the pilot. Before issuing a frequency change to Minneapolis Center, Alec thanked the pilots of LXJ94 for their assistance. 

By using all available resources to seek and find actionable information, and by using an unusual method of reaching a pilot, Alec and Felicia went the extra mile help locate a pilot outside of their airspace that was seeking assistance from ATC. Great work going the extra mile (and 20,000 feet), Felicia and Alec!