The FAA has instituted new rules designed to keep sightseeing helicopters from colliding with airplanes that are transitioning the Hudson River Corridor near the Statue of Liberty. The San Francisco Daily Journal, California's largest legal newspaper, published this column on how the new rules came to pass, and why they aren't enough.
NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman's recent testimony before congress concerning the mid-air collision over the Hudson raises more questions than it answers. She stated that the Teterboro controller instructed the Piper pilot to switch to frequency 127.85 to contact the Newark controller. But before leaving the Teterboro frequency, according to Hersman, the pilot read back to the controller "127.87," which was wrong. Thereafter, the pilot was in contact with neither Teterboro nor Newark, and so neither facility could warn him of the impending collision. Hersman's remarks are here.
Hersman's implication is that the Teterboro controller failed to correct the pilot, and so the controller contributed to the pilot's getting "lost in the hertz" (out of radio contact) at a crucial moment. However, the animation that the NTSB released on the same day that Hersman testified does not appear to back Hersman up. It just doesn't sound as though the pilot read back "127.87" as Hersman states. You can listen to the audio yourself beginning at minute 2:25.
We count on the NTSB to get the facts right. That confidence is, unfortunately, sometimes misplaced. The truth is that the NTSB gets it wrong. A lot. I’ve written about that here, here, and here.
The NTSB has now given us further reason to question whether it deserves the confidence we
place in it. On Friday, the NTSB came out with a block-buster press release condemning the Teterboro air traffic controller who had cleared the Piper airplane for takeoff. According to the NTSB's report, the Teterboro controller could see on his radar screen that the Piper pilot was on a possible collision course with the Liberty Tours helicopter. In fact, according to the NTSB, the controller could see the conflict before the Piper pilot switched off from the Teterboro controller’s frequency. Yet, according to the NTSB, the controller failed to warn the Piper pilot.
At 1152:20 the Teterboro controller instructed the pilot to contact Newark on a frequency of 127.85. . . At that time there were several aircraft detected by radar in the area immediately ahead of the airplane, including the accident helicopter, all of which were potential traffic conflicts for the airplane. The Teterboro tower controller, who was engaged in a phone call at the time, did not advise the pilot of the potential traffic conflicts.
That was wrong. True, the controller was on the phone when he should not have been. But the helicopter did not appear on the controller’s radar screen until after the Piper pilot was supposed to have switched to a new frequency. Of course, by then it was too late for the controller to advise the pilot of anything. In other words, it appears that there was nothing the controller could have done -- whether he was on the phone or not.
Over the weekend, the air traffic controllers’ union privately asked the NTSB to correct its error. The NTSB refused. So today the union issued its own press release setting the record straight. The press release claims that the NTSB's account, which implies that the controller should have prevented the accident, is "outright false" and "misleading." Worse, it charges that the NTSB knows it, but refuses to correct its error.
This afternoon, after the controllers' union went to the press, the NTSB finally conceded that it was, in fact, wrong. It thus issued a new press release, explaining that the controller could not have seen the helicopter after all.
The accident helicopter was not visible on the Teterboro controller's radar scope at 1152:20 [when the controller instructed the Piper to change frequencies]; it did appear on radar 7 seconds later - at approximately 400 feet.
The NTSB offered no apology for its error. Nor did it offer an explanation. Rather, despite that the union was right, and the NTSB was wrong, the NTSB’s only reaction was to kick the union off the investigation.
The NTSB’s blunder was a whopper. It laid blame for the accident where it does not appear to belong. The NTSB's only interest is supposed to be in getting the facts right. If that’s so, why did it not correct its error when the union asked it to? Why did it require the union to force the issue?
Compared to pilots in other countries, pilots in the US have extraordinary freedom. Of course, to keep commercial airliners safe from collisions, pilots of small aircraft are excluded from certain .jpg)
airspace near major airports unless they have first obtained a clearance from air traffic controllers. If a pilot obtains the necessary clearance, controllers will dictate the pilot's path and use radar to monitor the pilot's every move.
But that still leaves many places where pilots are permitted to fly without being supervised or controlled in any way. One such area, appropriately enough, is near the Statue of Liberty. As long as the pilot stays below 1100 feet -- outside the airspace used by airliners -- the pilot doesn't need a clearance, doesn't need to have filed a flight plan, and doesn't need to communicate with any tower or other air traffic control facility. The pilot is totally on his own.
Many non-pilots are surprised to learn that the method used to prevent collisions in such uncontrolled areas is called "see and avoid." The pilot is supposed to look out his window, "see" the other aircraft, and "avoid" them. Pilots talk about having to "keep their head on a swivel" when flying in uncontrolled airspace. Though this method of collision avoidance may sound primitive, over the years it has worked well.
There is one problem. Helicopters and airplanes don't mix well in a "see and avoid" environment. Helicopters fly slower than airplanes. And because they have a small cross section, they are hard to spot -- especially when viewed from directly behind. That puts them at risk of being rear-ended. It doesn't help matters that helicopters tend to manuever in a fashion that most airplane pilots find to be unpredictable.
Because of all that, helicopter pilots are supposed to "avoid the flow" of airplane traffic. In other words, as best they can, they are supposed to stay out of the way. Unfortunately, when both a helicopter and airplane are headed to the same spot, or are both looking at the same feature on the ground, that can be difficult to do.
We don't know what factors combined to result in the midair over the Hudson. But the NTSB has long recognized that when it comes to uncontrolled airspace, helicopters -- especially tour helicopters -- don't mix well with airplanes.
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