The Teterboro air-traffic controller on duty during the mid-air collision over the Hudson River had a workload so light that he had no excuse for failing to warn a small-plane pilot that other aircraft were in his path, according to a scathing letter released yesterday by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Investigators found the controller ignored protocol by not relaying the potential hazards to the pilot on Aug. 8.
His “workload was light,” and “nothing should have prevented him” from warning the Piper pilot, the NTSB wrote to the Federal Aviation Administration.
At the time of the accident, the controller, identified by sources as Carl Turner, was joking on the telephone with a female co-worker identified as his girlfriend.
Nine people were killed when the Piper crashed into a helicopter with Italian tourists aboard.
The NTSB also singled out the control-tower supervisor for leaving the tower to run an errand.
“The local controller’s inappropriate telephone conversation . . . likely would not have been permitted if the supervisor had been on duty,” investigators wrote.
Sources have identified the supervisor as Dennis Moore.
Both Moore and Turner have been suspended.