The air traffic controller at Teterboro Airport was on the phone with his girlfriend during the mid-air collision over the Hudson River.While these guys should be fired if safety rules were violated, this was not a causal factor in the collision. Both aircraft were operating under visual flight rules which means they were responsible for their own navigation and separation from other aircraft. They were not under positive control from the tower or any other air traffic entity.
His supervisor had wandered off and wasn't even in the tower.
Horrified officials called their actions "unacceptable," even though they were not blamed for Saturday's crash.
Both controllers - who were not immediately identified - have been suspended and will likely be fired.
Could the tower controller have called the helicopter traffic out to the airplane that was on his frequency? Possibly, though I don't know if that was routine in that area due to the high volume of traffic in the VFR corridor. He was not required to.
These guys will be villified by people who don't know anything about the air traffic system. A suprising number of people think every aircraft is required to file a flight plan and fly under air traffic guidance, but that's not at all correct. The pilots in this incident had the responsibility to watch out for themselves.
A video has now turned up of the actual collision and my theory about how it happened seems to be pretty likely. You can read that here.
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