On March 23, 1994, Aeroflot Flight 593, flying from Moscow to Hong Kong, inexplicably plummeted from the skies over Siberia. Investigators were puzzled at first, but then the shocking truth came out.

A pilot had been giving a tour of the cockpit to his two children. He allowed his 15-year-old son to sit in the captain's seat and simulate flying the plane. By accident, the boy partially disabled the auto-pilot. The Airbus A310 went into a steep bank, then a dive. All 75 passengers and crew were killed.

That tragic story ought to ring loudly in the ears of the air traffic controller who brought his elementary-school son to work at Kennedy Airport on Feb. 16 and allowed him to radio routine instructions to planes. Rightly incensed by this incident, the Federal Aviation Administration last week suspended the controller and his supervisor pending an official investigation.

The pilots who heard the unfamiliar sound of a young boy's voice on the controller's frequency seemed charmed and, indeed, it is easy to make excuses for the father. He meant no harm. He was telling his son what to say and monitoring the exchange. Nothing bad happened.

But the first priority of everyone in the aviation industry is safety, and professionalism is the best guarantee of safety. Passengers expect the pilots and controllers to pay absolute attention to their jobs. A cute distraction can be a dangerous distraction, as the fate of Aeroflot Flight 593 so vividly illustrated.

FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt got it exactly right in his statement on the Kennedy incident: "This lapse in judgment not only violated FAA's own policies, but common sense standards for professional conduct. These kinds of distractions are totally unacceptable." The aviation industry has enough problems without kids playing air traffic controller.

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