Posted on 09/15/2010 7:04:27 AM PDT by 50mm
A fatal mid-air collision between a helicopter and a small plane, which resulted in the deaths of nine people, was caused by an air traffic controller talking on his phone about a dead cat, an investigation has found.
A government safety panel said the incident over New York's Hudson River last year occurred after the controller became distracted by the call.
Five Italian tourists were killed on August 8 2009 when their tour helicopter smashed into a light aircraft flying over the city.
The U.S National Transportation Safety Board said the Federal Aviation Administration rules between New York and New Jersey, which rely on pilots to 'see and avoid' other aircraft rather than be actively separated by air traffic controllers, were also to blame for the accident.
Both aircraft involved in last year's accident were equipped with a different kind of technology - traffic monitoring systems - that provide indications of the impeding collision, investigators told the board.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
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Seriously,...so sorry for their loss.
My brother is an ATC. They are not supposed to take phone calls when they are on the floor. It’s hard to imagine someone taking a call. Wow.
From the video, it looked like the helicopter blades split the plane in half - right down the middle.
When I went to the copyright list I didn’t find the Daily Mail, but when I previewed the post it went to the auto-excerpt mode. Should Daily Mail be added to the list?
Hotel Sierra, Batman! Wow - that’s an unrecoverable spin, right there. What a waste.
Colonel, USAFR
Bulls....
The accident was caused by pilots in uncontrolled airspace failing to avoid each other.
It may have been prevented by an alert controller.
“The accident was caused by pilots in uncontrolled airspace failing to avoid each other.”
Bingo! Spot on! A contributing factor may have been the controller’s inattention.
You can never successfully delegate away responsibility for personal safety for long. It always catches up with you. Especially in mid-air.
And now I have yet another reason to dislike cats.
The legal fault of the accident is 100% the helicopter pilot’s. The airplane is on his right and is higher so has right if way. Airplanes have right of way over helicopters near airports. Helicopters can fly lower where airplanes aren’t allowed and therefore have protection staying low.
DING! DING! DING! WE HAVE A WINNAH!................
I thought the same thing before I read the article. Because Altman asked to be advised of potential traffic conflicts, then the botched hand-off, the controller not catching the bad read-back, and the difficulty in the pilots ability to view and avoid traffic, it seems like it’s not just one “little” controller error, but a series of the controller not paying attention to his/her job.
Of course, as mentioned in the article, ultimately the responsibility lies with each pilot to avoid. ATC’s supposed to be there to assist pilots, though, not take personal phone calls.
I thought the same thing before I read the article. Because Altman asked to be advised of potential traffic conflicts, then the botched hand-off, the controller not catching the bad read-back, and the difficulty in the pilots ability to view and avoid traffic, it seems like it’s not just one “little” controller error, but a series of the controller not paying attention to his/her job.
Of course, as mentioned in the article, ultimately the responsibility lies with each pilot to avoid. ATC’s supposed to be there to assist pilots, though, not take personal phone calls.
Sorry for the double post.
The pilots are no longer here to be blamed, so the primary focus of the blame naturally falls upon the one living person who seemingly could have prevented the tragedy if he hadn’t been distracted. It’s hard for me not to actually feel very sorry for him, as it would be such a terrible thing to wake up every morning with the knowledge that your negligence likely contributed to the death of nine people.
I told you guys that cat were evil.
So evil, they can even make me miss the “S” on my keyboard!
;)
dead cat...nine lives...just a little weird, don’t you think?
Some people think rules are for other people.
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