WASHINGTON - Controlling the ground and air space of thousands of military aircraft in a combat zone, day and night, in all weather for 12 months with limited facilities and equipment is what it took this year to receive the nation's top air traffic control award for civilian and military professionals. Army National Guard Sgt. 1st Class Leland Hughes, a tall, broad-shouldered Soldier from Louisiana, earned the distinction.
Hughes was awarded the General E. R. Quesada Memorial Award by the Air Traffic Control Association (ATCA) during an awards luncheon here Oct. 29 for his ATC duties under war-time conditions in Iraq.
Hughes, a senior air traffic controller with the Louisiana Guard's 2nd of the 244th Aviation Regiment, managed a team of Army Guard air traffic controllers from Louisiana and Maryland during a 12-month deployment last year to the Army airfield at Camp Taji.
"The award recognizes extraordinary achievement bringing Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), military and civilian aviation together," said ATCA President Peter F. Dumont. "[Hughes] embodies that." Dumont explained that the association poured over many nominations of high-caliber ATC professionals this year. "Sergeant Hughes stood out over and above all of the rest," he said.
Hughes and more than 20 Guard controllers deployed in November 2005 as Echo Company, 111th Aviation Regiment to support the Army's 4th Infantry Division (ID). The Soldiers were split into two groups stationed at Camp Taji and at a U.S. Embassy heliport in Baghdad.
Camp Taji is one of more than a dozen forward operating military air bases staged throughout Iraq. It was seized from enemy forces by the 4th ID in April 2003, and its airfield includes a 5,500 foot runway. Hughes credits his ATCA recognition to the Soldiers he served with there.
"I may have made some decisions here and there to help steer the mission, but they are the ones who actually executed the mission and made it the success that it was," Hughes said.
At Camp Taji, Hughes and 12 controllers operated an ATC tower and radar facility in support of the Army's 4th Combat Aviation Brigade, which based flight operations there. "Obviously, we handled mostly helicopters there, including every model in the Army inventory, as well as coalition aircraft," Hughes said.
The Army's ATC military occupational specialty is all-encompassing and includes day and night, fixed-base and tactical air traffic control. Hughes€™ greatest challenge, he said, was that the majority of his controllers were inexperienced. To accomplish the mission, he produced a work and training schedule that paired experienced and inexperienced controllers.
Hughes said Camp Taji was an extremely busy Army facility. "It was the busiest Army control tower in theatre," he said. "So it was a very high traffic level for the new controllers to have to assume, but they stepped up to the plate and did a great job, and we had a very successful mission."
There were long work days and austere conditions, Hughes said. The facility they were tasked to run included a former Iraqi control tower that was in "deplorable condition." Their equipment was unreliable, and the gutted buildings had cables running through windows, which allowed Iraq's invasive sand and dust inside.
ATCA officials said Hughes "took the initiative to train his people and improve the facilities to an unprecedented extent, thus providing the best possible air traffic control service in the combat zone."
"We made significant improvements while we were there and brought it up to real-world standards," said Hughes. "When we handed that mission off to the next unit, they had improved facilities to come into."
Hughes and the battalion returned last November.
"The people in Afghanistan and the people in Iraq are doing great work in the most difficult conditions you could imagine," said Dumont, about military and civilian controllers working in the Global War on Terrorism.
The ATCA represents more than 2,200 controllers as well as corporate members. The association's Quesada award is given to a civilian or military individual for outstanding achievement or contribution during the previous year as an ATC manager. It was named after retired Lt. Gen. Elwood Quesada, who was the nation's first administrator of the FAA and also served as special assistant for aviation affairs under President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
"Part of what General Quesada stood for as head of the FAA was bringing together military and civilian aviation," said Dumont, and added that Hughes, like Quesada, demonstrated above anyone else that he could that.