His sharp, calm gaze follows yet another aircraft swooping down from the cloudless sky, its tires screeching in clouds of blue smoke as it returns to Earth on Haneda's concrete runway. One more flight successfully completed, he thinks — and now the next.
Despite being responsible for thousands of lives every day, he emanates a cool, poised and professional demeanor.
Though his job may be devoid of incident or mishap for 99.99 percent of the time, it's that 0.01 percent that he's really there for — when the slightest slip in concentration will result in a tragedy making headlines around the world, with hundreds of people being incinerated or ripped to bits.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.