Air traffic controller joking seconds before midair crash
An air traffic controller was joking on the phone about barbecuing a dead cat moments before a light aircraft collided with a tour helicopter over the Hudson River, it has been revealed.
Nine people died in the New York accident, including five Italian tourists.
Transcripts obtained by The Associated Press news agency show the controller at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey was talking to someone who works at the airport's operations centre at the time of the August 8 accident, even while he was guiding the single-engine Piper and other aircraft.
"We got plenty of gas in the grill?" the controller asked. "Fire up the cat."
Seconds before the accident, the controller uttered a swear word and ended the call.
The draft government transcripts show that shortly after the controller cleared the Piper for take-off, he made a phone call to the airport's operations office and remained on the phone until just before the plane collided with the helicopter five minutes later.
The transcripts conform with a sequence of events laid out last week by the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the accident, although they differ slightly on the exact time events occurred.
AP obtained the transcripts from a source familiar with the investigation, who asked not to be identified.
The transcripts do not identify either the controller or the other person on the phone, although sources familiar with the investigation said the call was to a woman.
Officials for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which manages the airport, said last week that the phone call, made on a landline that controllers use to contact other parts of the airport, was to an employee of AvPORTS, a contractor at Teterboro.
During a phone call that ended 12 minutes before the Piper's pilot told the tower he was ready for take-off, the transcripts show the controller was bantering with the woman about a dead cat that she apparently had to remove from airport property.
Two minutes after the Piper took off, the controller called the woman back.
"We got plenty of gas in the grill?" the controller asked. "Fire up the cat."
"Ooh, disgusting, augh, that thing was disgusting," the woman responded.
They continued to banter about the cat while the controller directed traffic.
The Federal Aviation Administration said last week that it has placed the controller and his supervisor on administrative leave pending an investigation.
The agency said the controller's actions were inappropriate and unacceptable, but did not appear to have contributed to the accident.
That prompted a rebuke from the NTSB, which said it was up to the board to determine what role the controller's actions may have played.
A spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association said yesterday the nature of the phone conversation was not relevant.
"This phone call and the FAA's allegations that it was inappropriate are something that will be handled by the FAA in a disciplinary matter we will be involved in, but the bottom line for us is that this call had nothing to do with this tragic accident that occurred," said Doug Church, a spokesman for the union.
