Reposted with typos corrected.

I fly out of KGMU on a regular basis, and there is one particular controller there with a piss poor attitude who likes to nail people for even the smallest mistakes.

This particular controller happened to give a bad taxi instruction that the pilot started to comply with. The instruction was “Turn right on 10/28, right on D4, C2 to the ramp”. The pilot turned off on 10/28, then realized “Wait a minute, did he say turn right on D?” and started to turn back around when the controller nailed him for turning around to correct. He stopped, then asked “Okay just tell me where you want me to go”, and the controller told him just continue on 10/28 and take C2 to the ramp.

Admittedly, the pilot should not have turned back towards the runway, but as you’re about to see, this controller put him in a bad and confusing position.

Upon listening back to the ATC audio (I have a CVR app on my phone as many of us pilots do…yes ATC, you’re being recorded on the pilot’s end too), upon listening to the original instruction and examining the taxiway diagram, I realized you can’t turn right on D4 from 10/28 when exiting onto 10/28 from 19. I then realized the controller meant to say “Exit on D, right on D4, cross 10/28 and C2 to the ramp”. But the recording revealed that’s clearly not what he said. The controller misspoke, caused a confusing situation for the pilot, then nailed the pilot.

KGMU has at least 4 flight schools. If this controller is nailing student pilots for the smallest things (and I mean he cops an attitude about it), he needs to be removed from his position as this will create dangerous situations.

While I agree that mistakes should be addressed and corrected and some sort of intervention needs to happen, you can be nice about it. Having a piss poor attitude and lashing out at pilots can definitely be spared. We don’t fly airplanes because ATC stands in a tower. This guy either needs to drop his attitude or find a different career path.