SCAPEGOATS!

THE PLOT THICKENS!!!!!

"The Piper pilot never contacted Newark, but just before the collision he acknowledged the Teterboro controller's instruction to change radio frequencies. The sequence of events raises the possibility the pilot's attention may have been focused on the radio so that he didn't see the helicopter."

Controllers: NTSB report on Hudson collision wrong - Yahoo! News

OMG!!

You've gotta be sh!tting me!

They're now trying to say that the pilot was distracted by the radio???

Well it seems its the NTSB out for blood but the evidence is starting to show that the only thing they could hang on the controller was he made a phone call about a dead cat.

Aviation accidents that involve injury or death is by far one of the lowest of any mode of transportation in the U.S.

The NTSB needs to get ahold of itself and take it down a notch.

Just imagine if the FHA got thier panties in a wad everytime there was an auto accident using this same kind of "witch hunt" mentality...

GrauGeist said:

Aviation accidents that involve injury or death is by far one of the lowest of any mode of transportation in the U.S.

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GG, Are you sure about that?
Given the amount of exposure (i.e. we spend a lot more time in a car that and aircraft) the statistics are a lot different. I haven't seen them, but I know that if you take exposure time into account, things change. There's lies, damned lies, and statistics

They're now trying to say that the pilot was distracted by the radio???

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It happens. You look down to change the frequency, or check the frequency in the publications, and when you look back up - things have changed.

Personally, I think that this is just one of those things that hapens when you squeeze too many aircraft into too small an airspace. The big sky theory breaks down.

If we take the statistics into a daily accounting over a yearly period, yep.

For example, 2008 saw a total of 34,017 Motor vehicle fatalities
This breaks down to:
19,220 driver deaths
7,397 passenger deaths
72 deaths unattributed (meaning can't determine driver or passenger)

There were also:
5,290 mototcycle fatalities
4,378 pedestrian fatalities
716 bicycle fatalities

(Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)

According to the NTSB, for 2008, aicraft fatalities (due to accidents) were as follows:
U.S. air carriers operating under 14 CFR 121 - Nonscheduled: 2
U.S. air carriers operating under 14 CFR 135 - On-Demand: 19
U.S. general aviation: 275
U.S. civil aviation: 296
Foreign registered aircraft in the U.S.: 4
Unregistered aircraft: 1
Total: 597

(Source: National Transportation Safety Board)

So it looks to me like it's deadlier to ride your bike than it is to fly in an airplane!

(By the way, the statistics are for the United States)

gumbyk said:

It happens. You look down to change the frequency, or check the frequency in the publications, and when you look back up - things have changed.

Personally, I think that this is just one of those things that hapens when you squeeze too many aircraft into too small an airspace. The big sky theory breaks down.

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Agree 100%. Unfortunately there's a lot of "aviation politics" in that area - GA, Corps, tourist ops, and of course the airlines and no politician and the FAA wants to step on any one's toes, so this happens and they all try to blame the sole controller.

It all sounds rather familiar in my industry (railroads) soon as anything happens its finger pointing time by the safety executive. I have sat on a couple of enquiries and you sit one side of the table on your own and 6 guys are the other with all the data, rules, regs diagrams etc firing questions its bloody hard to keep from being shot down on something.

I hope the ATC has a good union lawer to help him fight his corner if they decide it's going to be his neck on the block,
things like this show these guys earn every penny they get.

Regarding a read back requirement on a freq change, there's nothing in the FARs that I can find but I did find this in the AIM:

AIM 4-2-3 Contact Procedures
d. Acknowledgment of Frequency Changes.

1. When advised by ATC to change frequencies, acknowledge the instruction. If you select the new frequency without an acknowledgment, the controller's workload is increased because there is no way of knowing whether you received the instruction or have had radio communications failure.

As previously quoted, the Piper pilot did acknowledge the change with Teterboro but never contacted Newark.

Which leads to a couple of thoughts:

As reported in the AP story linked at Yahoo, the helo wasn't on radar until seven seconds after the handoff to Newark. So even if Teterboro saw it, he's out of contact with the Piper by the time he does (assuming he saw it immediately) and the Piper isn't yet in contact with Newark to get a conflict warning because he's not up yet on the new frequency. And during this time the Piper pilot has his head down making the frequency change.

I haven't seen a timeline that shows how much time there was between the handoff and the mid-air, but assuming that it was fairly short, say a minute or two, the Piper pilot probably got his head back up just in time to see the helo pop up in front of him.

Assuming the helo's departure point was ahead of the Piper when the helo lifted and that both aircraft were on roughly the same course (given the impact from behind) the Piper pilot may well not have been able to see the helo because it would be blocked by the nose of the Piper. Since it's unlikely (I think) that the helo was faster and overtook the Piper and popped up from behind and underneath it's more likely that the helo was always in front of the Piper and was hidden by its nose.

If that's the case then this was a case of bad timing - if either the helo or the Piper leaves a minute or two earlier or later or if the frequency change is a minute or two earlier or later there's either no conflict or there's an opportunity for the helo to pop up on radar so that one of the controllers can see it and call the conflict and get the pilots looking in the right spot or evading. Crowded sky and the inherent limitations of see-and-avoid in action.

With the ongoing recent war between NTSB and FAA (and now NATCA) I'm sure there'll be plenty of blame spread around, deserved or not, and some more regulation and/or restrictions on airspace needed or not.

Hope this makes sense; I had a long day today and it's late so I might have rambled a bit.

Gary

Thanks for finding that in the AIM Gary - one of those things you remember seeing at one time or another.

Just read this today, should shed light on the situation:

Federal safety officials Monday 08/17/2009 ejected the air traffic controllers union from the investigation of a midair collision over the Hudson River, after union leaders publicly demanded a retraction from investigators who had suggested an air traffic controller could have prevented the crash.

The National Transportation Safety Board, which said in a statement the union had violated the rules for third-party observers, did revise its statement on a point the union had disputed: The Teterboro Airport controller monitoring a small plane over the Hudson River on Aug. 8 could not see the approaching helicopter on his radar when he handed off control of the aircraft, instructing the pilot to switch frequencies and contact the Newark air control tower.

The NTSB typically invites groups to participate in investigations as third-party observers if they can provide technical expertise. The union will no longer participate in the investigation.

National Air Traffic Controllers Association president Patrick Forrey said he sought to persuade the NTSB to correct wording in a Friday report, which suggested the Teterboro controller failed to advise the Piper's pilot of aircraft "immediately ahead of the airplane, including the accident helicopter."

Forrey said Monday the Teterboro controller had no reason to warn the Piper about other aircraft visible on the radar scope, because its requested path - a climb to 3,500 feet - would have taken it away from those potential obstacles.

And, the NTSB release the corrected statement anyway...

According to preliminary data provided to the Safety Board by the Federal Aviation Administration, the controller cleared the accident airplane for departure at 11:48:30. The first radar target for the airplane was detected at 11:49:55, at about 300 feet. The controller initiated a non-business-related telephone conversation at 11:50:31. Prior to the Teterboro controller instructing the pilot to contact Newark Tower at 1152:20, there were several aircraft in the Hudson River Class B Exclusion Area in the vicinity of the airplane, some of which were potential traffic conflicts. These were detected by radar and displayed on the controller's scope in Teterboro tower. The Teterboro controller did not alert the airplane pilot to this traffic prior to instructing him to change his radio frequency and contact Newark. The accident helicopter was not visible on the Teterboro controller's radar scope at 1152:20; it did appear on radar 7 seconds later - at approximately 400 feet.

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SB-09-44