Teterboro Airport controllers on duty during the deadly mid-air collision over the Hudson were subject to a strict set of rules banning distractions like personal phone calls, federal regulators said yesterday.
Yet enforcement of tower rules is mostly left to “common sense,” a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said.
Controller Carl Turner juggled radio calls to planes and other towers with a tasteless phone call joking with his girlfriend about a dead cat moments before a plane he’d been guiding crashed into a helicopter Aug. 8, killing nine people.
But failure to comply with specific on-the-job rules doesn’t always mean a worker will be disciplined, regulators said.
“Generally, that would be the decision of the supervisor on duty,” said FAA spokesman Jim Peters. “It’s an individual call.”
Turner, who lives on Long Island, and his supervisor, Dennis Moore, of New Jersey, have been suspended.
The rule of thumb is nothing should be in an air tower’s operation area that might distract a controller, said Peters.
Specific items banned are televisions, radios, cellphones and nonwork-related reading material, Peters said.
Personal phone calls are not permitted unless a worker is on break. Exceptions are made for a family emergency, he said.
The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board have not said Turner’s call was the cause of the crash. In fact, the Piper he was guiding had passed out of his control before the chopper appeared on his radar, officials said.
But Turner appeared to be in violation of the FAA’s “commonsense” policy.
Peters said the FAA’s ban on personal calls had to do with maintaining “situational awareness,” a major component of a controller’s job.
“The controller is supposed to be focused on what’s going on with the airspace and operating areas like taxiways and runways. They’re supposed to be looking out, scanning the environment,” Peters said.
The name of the woman who was joking with Turner moments before the horrific mid-air crash has not been released.
She works for a private company, AvPort Management, which contracts with the Port Authority to do maintenance at Teterboro.
The Port Authority said it was cooperating with the NTSB’s investigation.
Depending on the findings, “we will take whatever appropriate action is necessary regarding this contract employee,” said PA spokesman Ron Marsico.