Stephen Abraham is a retired FAA air traffic controller with the nickname “ Kennedy Steve”. Steve worked in JFK air traffic control tower for over 20 years. Steve has a YouTube channel and has made a video on the stress air traffic controllers face after an aircraft accident by using the audio tapes of the B767 crash at Miami on September 4, 2026.
This is a comment another controller made in the comment session of this YouTube video:
“A RETIRED AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER’S PERSPECTIVE
Great educational piece, Steve.
I would like to emphasize that, as a controller, you do not have to be working the position—or even work at the facility involved—for an event like this to have a profound impact on you.
I worked at Atlanta Tower for 20 years and retired this past January after 33 years in air traffic control. When I saw the 2025, DCA collision on the news that morning, I broke down in tears as I was preparing to go to work. Mind you, I never worked a single day at DCA Tower.
The stress associated with air traffic control is not a joke, and it is not something we make up. It is very real.
When you’re young, your mind and body can become experts at compartmentalizing that stress. You learn to tuck it away, move on to the next airplane, finish the shift, go home, and come back the next day. You convince yourself that you’re fine because that is what the job requires you to do.
But that stress does not necessarily disappear simply because you have learned how to function through it. Over a career, those experiences accumulate. Eventually, there may be nowhere left to tuck them away, and that stress can rear its ugly head when you least expect it.
That is something I don’t think people outside this profession always understand. Sometimes, neither do we—until it happens to us.
If you have never keyed up and talked to an airplane, then you have no idea what it is like to be an air traffic controller.
My heart goes out to our brothers and sisters at Miami Tower.”
ANOTHER CONTROLLER COMMENT:
@carlfinley5373 • 1d ago
“Thanks for the video Steve. I retired after 33 years, so I appreciate you trying to get the facts out.
Hopefully the CISM (Critical Incident Stress Management) team is on the ground already. They helped me.”
The author was a controller for 37 years: Clint77090@gmail.com