[AblemTee]

Flight controllers suspended over NY midair collision

(AFP) – 2 hours ago

NEW YORK — An air traffic controller has been suspended, along with a supervisor, for chatting on the telephone during a fatal collision between a helicopter and a small airplane over New York last weekend, authorities said Friday.

"We learned that the controller handling the Piper flight was involved in apparently inappropriate conversations on the telephone at the time of the accident," the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) said in a statement.

The controller and the supervisor, who broke the rules by being absent from the building, have been placed on administrative leave, the statement said.

The FAA said it had "no reason to believe at this time that these actions contributed to the accident."

However, "this kind of conduct is unacceptable."

Nine people, including five Italian tourists, died August 8 when a sight-seeing helicopter collided with a Piper single-engine private aircraft over the Hudson River.

It was the first fatal crash in the highly congested New York airspace since October 11, 2006, when two people died after flying a light plane into a skyscraper on Manhattan.

In January an Airbus jet operated by US Airways lost power shortly after take-off and crash landed in the Hudson without loss of life.

Copyright © 2009 AFP.


Video of collision

[vladekad]

Of all the times to be breaking the rules (even though they had, so we are to believe, no impact on the events of the day).

I feel a bit sorry for these guys.....

[GZFL2tDA]

Bunch of BS - there's no one to blame who's still alive, so they sacrifice a bunch of guys who even theoretically had no power to stop this accident.

The ancient Israelites had the right idea. Something goes wrong that you can't pin on somebody? Blame God, kill a goat, and move on with your life...

[Anneskobsen]

Yeah, hell, seems yakking on the phone to your sweetheart wouldn't get in the way of doing any job I can think of.

Who can't do two things at once?

All these rules. People should be freed up to do things as they see fit. Let the cards fall where they may.

[mArVHDO6]

So the pilot didn't see the helicopter filling his windscreen because of some flight controllers? And I though that part of the airspace wasn't controlled anyway?

[orapope]

Not "controlled" but covered by controllers -- and apparently, from the latest reports, folks all around weren't paying the attention demanded.

[TheBestCheapestOEM]

There's a VFR (Visual Flight Rules) corridor along the Hudson River. 1500 foot ceiling (I think). Above that altitude, aircraft must be on instrument control.

Would it be correct to assume this means the pilot is responsible for looking after the position of the aircraft in relation to other aircraft? If so it doesn't matter what the controllers were doing.

[Aozenee]

It's best to wait for the NTSB investigation.

The Hudson corridor is uncontrolled, so certain procedures and visual rules are the responsibility of the pilot. The controller doesn't assign slots in the airspace to all the aircraft and keep them safely separated. But the aircraft are handed off into this space from class-B airspace, which is controlled. In the case of the airplane, it was Teterboro.

The tour helicopters are already within the Hudson corridor.

US airspace is divided into lettered classes. Class-A space is like a high altitude expressway.

Class-B space is the most restrictive that goes to ground level. The tiered "upside down wedding cake" that sits over the airports is a good description.

Philip Greenspun, a pilot who operates tours in Boston and has experience with the Hudson corridor, provides a good analysis. He focuses on the point of entry to the Hudson from Teterboro control (see the NYTimes graphic).

[ButKnillinoi]

August 28, 2009

Separate Altitudes Suggested for Flights Over Hudson

By MATTHEW L. WALD and AL BAKER

The National Transportation Safety Board is recommending major changes to air traffic over the Hudson River — including having helicopters and planes fly at separate altitudes — to prevent another midair collision like the one that killed nine people on Aug. 8.

The board is also recommending that pilots who are to fly in the Hudson River air corridor and around the Statue of Liberty complete a special training course.

The board is probably months away from a final report about the accident this month, in which a single-engine plane collided with a tour helicopter during a flight in a low-altitude area that is not under the direction of air traffic controllers. The main responsibility for avoiding collisions in the area rests with the pilots themselves, who are supposed to look out the window for other traffic.

The safety board’s call for changes was made on Thursday in a 10-page letter to the Federal Aviation Administration administrator, J. Randolph Babbitt. The board, a purely advisory agency, usually makes recommendations after concluding its investigations, but does so sooner if it finds that there is a clear case for action to improve safety.

The board’s letter came shortly before a report on the same subject was expected from a special panel convened by the aviation administration, which actually regulates the pilots and the airspace. Agency officials sometimes complain that the safety board likes to time its recommendations to beat others to the punch.

The chairwoman of the safety board, Deborah A. P. Hersman, said in a statement on Thursday that the current procedures for flying in the Hudson air corridor are “not enough.”

“Our recommendations suggest operational changes that can make this corridor a safer place to fly,” she said.

In response, Laura J. Brown, an F.A.A. spokeswoman in Washington, noted that the agency had convened a panel on Aug. 17 to study operational issues in two air corridors over New York City: the one over the Hudson River and another over the East River. She said the panel, which includes air traffic and safety experts from the aviation agency, experienced air traffic controllers and a member of the union that represents the controllers, is expected to present its report to Mr. Babbitt Friday.

“They are looking at all these issues, and we won’t have any comment on the N.T.S.B.’s recommendations until we have a chance to look at the recommendations of our own working group,” Ms. Brown said.

The crash spurred an outcry by New York politicians over the airspace, a corridor between Governors Island and the George Washington Bridge, 1,100 feet and below, which one politician referred to as the Wild West.

Among the board’s recommendations is one that would require that planes intending to re-enter airspace that is under the direction of controllers be cleared to do so as soon as traffic permits. Another would require that pilots in the area be advised to listen to an established common radio frequency to announce their position and listen for other traffic. Currently, some pilots — possibly including the one involved in the crash on Aug. 8 — listen to air traffic controllers instead. The board’s letter said that the pilot of the airplane had asked controllers to watch him on radar and warn him of other traffic — a service known as flight-following that is provided when controllers are able.

The board’s letter said that using a common frequency “would have required the pilot to be actively transmitting and receiving on two different radios at the same time,” which it said was especially hard in a busy environment like New York City’s. Still, it said, listening in on that common frequency is a “fundamental component” of safety procedures in the area.

The safety board has not yet determined what frequency the airplane’s pilot was monitoring on Aug. 8. Since he was told by a controller at Teterboro to check in with the controller at Newark Liberty International Airport and acknowledged that instruction, but never actually did so, one possibility is that he tuned in to some other, inappropriate frequency.

The board has also not determined the significance of a “nonbusiness” phone call placed by the Teterboro controller after he cleared the plane for take-off. But it said Thursday that the absence of a supervisor from the tower at the time of the crash had allowed the controller to make the call, and slowed up emergency notifications afterward.


Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

[whimpykid]

September 3, 2009

F.A.A. Plans Changes in Hudson Flight Rules

By AL BAKER

The Federal Aviation Administration said on Wednesday that it would issue new rules governing how airplanes, helicopters and other touring and official aircraft operate in the congested air corridor above the Hudson River.

Administration officials said the agency would also develop new training programs for pilots, air-traffic controllers and the tourist helicopter operators that use the corridor. And, for the largest part of the airspace, the agency said it would set limits for how fast the aircraft may fly and would require that every pilot in that airspace be tuned to the same radio channel — protocols that are now voluntary.

“These steps will significantly enhance safety in this busy area and create crystal-clear rules for all of the pilots who operate there,” the agency’s administrator, J. Randolph Babbitt, said in a statement outlining the changes.

The steps were recommended by a special panel convened by the aviation agency after a midair collision on Aug. 8 in which a single-engine plane collided with a touring helicopter over the river. The accident killed nine people, including a group of tourists from Italy.

The agency’s action is an effort to refine the regulations governing a congested airspace that one elected official has referred to as the Wild West.

A week earlier, the National Transportation Safety Board — an advisory body that has the lead role in investigating the crash but lacks the authority to order changes — issued its own set of recommendations, which are, by some measures, fundamentally different from the aviation agency’s proposals.

A spokeswoman for the safety board said Wednesday that it would look more carefully at the proposed changes in the days ahead.

Though the aviation agency’s proposals have to pass through a rulemaking process in Washington, including being subject to public comment, the agency will expedite the process and expects to have all of the changes in place by Nov. 19, said Laura J. Brown, an aviation agency spokeswoman.

Even as the proposed changes were made public, United States Representative Jerrold Nadler, who represents the West Side of Manhattan, released a statement calling them “fundamentally inadequate.”

Senator Charles E. Schumer also said he was not happy with the proposed changes. “The F.A.A. took a first step, but more has to be done,” Mr. Schumer said in a statement, citing the fact that under the proposals, controllers would not monitor planes below 1,000 feet. “We urge the F.A.A. to go back to the drawing board and put in the necessary additions to keep the corridor safe.”

An aide to Mr. Nadler said he and other lawmakers from New York and New Jersey had advanced a variety of ideas that the aviation agency had ignored. Primarily, Mr. Nadler was pushing to require all planes flying in the corridor to have a cockpit device that warns when another aircraft is too close, said the aide, Robert M. Gottheim.

“It is not something that you have to actively go on a radio for, but technology allows the system to operate automatically,” Mr. Gottheim said. “It would greatly diminish human error.”

The proposals put forward by the aviation agency deal with the finer points of flying aircraft through some of the most complicated airspace in the nation. At the core, the changes would create space for pilots who want to pass quickly through the area while avoiding the zigzagging planes or helicopters hoping to linger in the area for sightseeing.

Under the new configuration, a general aviation pilot could fly in a newly designated corridor above other general aviation traffic, yet be under the direction of air traffic controllers, a slight variation from current practice.

A second altitude corridor, from 1,000 to 1,300 feet, would be for planes to fly above other traffic but use, as a main means of avoiding collision, a technique called “see and avoid” — basically, meaning that pilots look out their windows to spot other aircraft.

A third airspace would be created for all aircraft operating under 1,000 feet, Ms. Brown said.

In the two lower-altitude corridors, the rules that would become mandatory include: Requiring pilots to tune their radio to a frequency of 123.05, known as the common traffic advisory frequency, and to announce their description, location, direction and altitude when entering the area; requiring southbound planes and copters to hug the New Jersey coastline and northbound ones to hew closely to the West Side of Manhattan; setting speeds at 140 knots or less for all aircraft; and requiring pilots to turn on anti-collision devices, navigation equipment and landing lights.

Any pilots of fixed-wing airplanes leaving Teterboro Airport, in New Jersey, would have to enter the uncontrolled air corridor via a special route over the George Washington Bridge. If those pilots desired to fly into controlled airspace, the controllers at Teterboro would have to gain approval from their counterparts at Newark Liberty International Airport before takeoff.

As for the training programs the aviation agency said it intends to develop, Ms. Brown said they would be added to pilots’ routine training but would not be mandatory for all pilots.

“We are requiring that if you operate in that airspace, you know the rules,” Ms. Brown said, adding, “There will be multiple ways that pilots can learn the rules.”

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company