Ok I know that by the book controllers are not responsible with VFR separation but ...

I got into this heated discussion with this gentleman (ATC) about the role of the controller in the Hudson collision.

My point: Will you really consider yourself blameless if two VFR planes collided in your airspace and on your frequency while you are involved in "inappropriate conversations" on a personal call?

His point: it's not ATC's job to separate VFR aircraft. If they get together, it's horrible accident, but not controller's fault. Period!

His attitude scares me!

I am fairly newbie ... my thinking might be faulty. This is the perfect time to find out. What do you guys think?

P.S. I always look for traffic ... flight following or not.

 

Doesn't the controller's responsibility depend on the type of airspace? I was just reviewing the airspace PPT from the USAF Advanced Instrument Course and I thought it said that in some classes of airspace that the controller was responsbile for separation of IFR AND VFR aircraft.

http://avn.faa.gov/index.asp?xml=mil/A3OT
Check out the air Traffic Control PowerPoint presentation.
(Takes a while to download)

It will be interesting to hear some of the book worms on this one. I always learn alot from these types of questions.

USMCFLYR

 

VFR/VFR is only in Bravo and this was not the case ... VFR pilots in C,D,E get traffic advisories if the ATC is not too busy.

 

ATC's duty is to separate IFR/IFR and IFR/VFR. It was not the controller's responsibility, so pay no attention to the media hype. Should he have been on the phone? No. Even if he was not on the phone, he could not have advised the pilot of traffic ahead:

Because the first radar target for the accident helicopter was detected about 1152:27, the helicopter was not yet visible on radar when the TEB local controller issued the frequency change to the airplane’s pilot. Therefore, before the frequency change, the TEB local controller could not have detected the impending conflict between the accident airplane and the accident helicopter or issued a warning to the airplane pilot about the helicopter. However, radar detected other aircraft in the Hudson River class B exclusion area that were potential conflicts at that time. The TEB local controller did not advise the airplane pilot of the other traffic ahead.

http://blog.nj.com/ledgerupdates_imp...-collision.pdf

My highlights from the NTSB safety recommendations. The controller was not at fault in this accident.

This is a classic example of where TCAS would likely have saved the day, but as I've seen in another thread, some pilots still believe that "see and avoid" is still the way to go...

 

Just because the controller was not at fault for this particular accident, he was still at fault for ignoring his duties.

When he left his post for a personal phone call, he couldn't predict what might or might not happen, and what he'd be responsible for. He got lucky that these deaths aren't on him directly. But they could have been. Only he knows how many times before he put people in jeopardy.

As a real example, consider Cactus 1549. A key part of that "miracle" was that a lot of traffic was cleared from around the Hudson in just a couple of minutes.

The key to any good system is redundancy and layers. While it is not ATC's direct responsibility to keep the VFR craft apart, ATC is one of several layers that has that capability. When any single layer fails, the risk increases. When all the various redundancies fail, accidents happen.

 

One time I flew down the Hudson River and noticed NUMEROUS aircraft (helos) flying around the Statue of Liberty and I lost count of the number of GA aircraft flying down either side of the Hudson. What would be the limits of the TCAS resolution and how wuld so many aircraft opearting in close proximity be displayed and how would the pilot make out the information? I could see a pilot get overwhelmed with the amount of information given to him and be head's down in the cockpit looking at the plethora of information instead of looking outside where he SHOULD be especially when operating in a high traffic area. The Mark 1 Mod 0 eyeball (and the brain it is attached too) is (are together) the number one sensor - all other sensors are TOOLS to help out and improve SA.

USMCFLYR

 

I agree 100%. He was shirking his duties. He didn't display a shining example of professionalism in the tower. In the same breath, the NWA188 crew didn't do the pilot community a favor either. People make mistakes. His mistake was being on the phone, and the NTSB determined that the phone call didn't cause the loss of separation.

Again, I completely agree. TCAS would have been the perfect tool here. Perhaps the helicopter pilot would have stopped climbing at 800ft if he had TCAS...

 

I think the best point is he has the wrong attiude. He should be of the opinion that anyone who sees someone else in harm's way should act.

Althought it's not his responsibility to separate VFR flights, he can and should give conflict advisories on a workload-permitting basis. For criss-sakes he's staring at a radar.

If it happens on a controller's watch, you should at the very least say this is a lesson learned that conflict advisories are important to any controller who takes his or her job seriously.

 

Current TCAS is pretty useless in a high-density traffic environment. The mode-C based system simply does not have the bearing and range resolution to deal with multiple close-in contacts. You just get a screen full of targets clustered around the center...if you get an RA in that situation, the guidance would probably put you into another conflict.

That's why RA's are disabled at low altitude, due to high traffic density on and around airports.

A future system based on ADS-B Out could provide better resolution based on more precise positional data.

 

The ATC controller in this case screwed up. Controllers are relieved of resposnsibility for most VFR/VFR conflicts for a very specific reason:

To ensure that they are not overloaded to the point where they cannot handle their assigned IFR traffic. IFR traffic is metered, but VFR traffic is not so there is no guarantee that any given controller might not be swamped by a horde of VFR aircraft which all happen to show up at the same time.

This is why Flight Following is not always available, and why you might not always be allowed into class B, C, or D airspace at your convenience.

With that said...it is clearly ATC's moral responsibility to provide as much assistance as possible to VFR traffic in their sector. They have the tools, and if they see a potential problem they should obviously speak up. If the guy had time to make a personal phone call while on watch, he had some extra time to monitor his scope. They are usually very good about it though.