Brian Bammesberger, Kyle Rohde, Ken Menconi

Southwest Area – January 2020

On Saturday, January 4, 2020 Brian Bammesberger was training Kyle Rohde at the PLANO/Streater sectors when N185FF (Cessna 185) called them “in the blind” asking for help. The VFR pilot had flown into clouds on his way to Illinois Valley (KVYS) airport. After identifying the aircraft, the training team gathered information from the pilot and alerted the rest of the area of the situation. The pilot was able to fly IFR and the training team verified that the pilot could maintain their own terrain and obstruction clearance as he climbed to the MVA of 2,500. When asked, the pilot stated that he has the weather and NOTAMs for Illinois Valley Airport and that he was picking up light to moderate rime icing. The training team verified that they didn’t have any other icing reports in the area, then continued working other O’hare and Midway arrival traffic. When asked if he could climb to 2,500 feet, the pilot expressed that he would prefer not to climb due to the icing he was accumulating. Brian issued a low altitude alert when he observed it, and asked the pilot to verify that the pilot was level at 2,500. The pilot stated he was having difficulty maintaining altitude due to the icing and Brian declared an emergency for expeditious handling. Though not required to do so, Brian advised the pilot of the crossing altitude at the next fix to reduce the pilot’s workload. They cleared the pilot for the approach, which he successfully completed to a safe landing. Ken Menconi was working the Bradford (BDF) sector radar position during this time and helped by offering advice and reminders to the training team and by keeping some aircraft on his frequency longer than normal to reduce frequency congestion with the emergency in progress. Brian, Kyle, and Ken maintained an awareness of this pilot’s urgent situation while working as a team to continue the efficient flow of arrival traffic to O’hare and Midway airports. Nice work, everyone!