Posted on 08/13/2009 10:42:57 PM PDT by Jet Jaguar
The air traffic controller at Teterboro Airport was on the phone with his girlfriend during the mid-air collision over the Hudson River.
His supervisor had wandered off and wasn't even in the tower.
Horrified officials called their actions "unacceptable," even though they were not blamed for Saturday's crash.
Both controllers - who were not immediately identified - have been suspended and will likely be fired.
Crash probes by the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration revealed the two controllers seriously deviated from their assignments at the time of the collision.
Nine people died when a single-engine Piper plane with three aboard clipped a Liberty Helicopters sightseeing chopper carrying a pilot and five Italian tourists. Both aircraft plummeted into the river.
The NTSB and FAA discovered the controller lapses by listening to audio recordings from the Teterboro tower.
"We learned that the controller handling the Piper flight was involved in apparently inappropriate conversations on the telephone at the time of the accident," FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
TEB takeoff procedures probably in place due to close proximity to NY Airports. When flying out of CDW the procedure after gaining take off clearance was to clear the runway vacate the field area and tell the tower your heading and altitude. If VFR you were not locked into the heading or the altitude you gave the tower on departure.
It would seem you are correct in assuming the controller at TEB should have been monitoring the departing aircraft and is indeed in deep doo doo.
BTW, where can I see the video of the collision you referred to in your post?
It is used occasionally but it has been sometime since I heard it used myself.
BTW, where can I see the tape of the collision you referred to in your post?
Much as I hate to send you there and I dont want to paste a link....I believe NBC had the exclusive on it. I imagine it is probably elsewhere, but I just went to MSNBC dot com (click on nightly news and look for “tourist captured video” and the video of last nights newscast is still there. Pretty graphic. It seems at the very last instant, the Piper pilot tried an evasive bank to the right, but it was too late.
If any of you on this thread condemning those involved talk on your cell phones while driving you’re just as guilty, you just haven’t killed anyone, yet ...
Maybe I'm wrong about this, but once the airplane departed from Teterboro Airport the control tower there may have had no responsibility for it.
This may very well fall under that "But For" category -- where the tower personnel are going to lose their jobs for breaking all kinds of rules while a high-profile accident occurred. Sort of like the infamous story I read a while ago about police officers responding to a domestic violence call in an apartment building, entering the wrong apartment, and finding a crazy old woman living there with several dozen cats all over the place.
Just as guilty as whom?
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