Originally Posted by
sailingfun
In defense of the crew It’s possible that the crew thought they might be getting a tower to tower clearance. We did that on the shuttle now and then. Delta certainly needs to take a hard look at operations especially at the regional level. The MEM to HSV divert recently is eye watering.
TEC routing is an IFR procedure, though. I did it on the CRJ9 out of EWR in 2022 when ZNY staffing was all screwed up. Went to 10,000 ft until the Cleveland Center border, at which point we could climb to a more usual altitude.