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FAA Releases Audio Recording of Hudson River Collision

October 11th, 2009 ~ No Comments

WASHINGTON — The FAA has released the audio recording of the air traffic controller’s telephone call with a friend in the moments before a small plane and a tour helicopter collided, killing nine people.

Transcripts of the conversation were previously released, but the FAA had refused to release the 29-minute audio recording until now. The recording was finally released after a Freedom of Information Act request from the media.

The controller, who has not been identified, has been placed on administrative leave along with a supervisor pending an investigation into the Aug. 8 crash.

The controller can be heard talking to his friend, who worked at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, about her finding the carcass of a cat near the airport and about her efforts to remove it, unaware that two aircraft were on a collision course over New York’s Hudson River.

After the controller was unable to make radio contact with the pilot ultimately involved in the crash, the controller tells his friend: “Damn … Let me straighten this stuff out.” Then he hangs up the phone, four seconds before the collision.

The National Transportation Safety Board has said the controller had handed off responsibility for the plane to controllers at Newark Liberty International Airport seven seconds before the helicopter appeared on his radar screen. The helicopter had just lifted off from a helipad on the New York side of the river.

The pilot, Steven Altman, 60, of Ambler, Pa., apparently misheard the controller when he directed Altman to contact controllers in Newark and gave him the radio frequency. NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman told a congressional hearing last month that Altman read back the wrong radio frequency to the controller but was never corrected.

Newark controllers noticed the imminent crash on their radar screens, but could not reach the pilot.

Moments later the collision occurred, sending both aircraft spiraling into the river. All three people aboard the plane and a pilot and five Italian tourists aboard the helicopter were killed.

Click here for the FAA audio recording

Also see related NTSB animation of collision

Tags: FAA

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