The Nationwide Transportation Security Board stated Friday that it had subpoenaed the pilots of an American Airways airplane that crossed in entrance of one other jet that had been cleared to take off final month at Kennedy Worldwide Airport. The company took the step after the pilots declined its request for electronically recorded interviews.
In line with a preliminary report on the shut name by the protection board, the American Airways airplane crossed a runway on Jan. 13 with out clearance from air visitors management. That pressured controllers to instruct pilots of a Delta Air Traces airplane to abort their takeoff. The planes got here inside 1,400 toes of one another.
The union that represents American Airways pilots stated in an announcement that it objected to digital audio recordings as a result of the apply might make pilots much less candid.
An interview that places pilots relaxed “is essential to getting probably the most info in any security investigation,” Capt. Dennis Tajer, a spokesman for the union, stated in an interview. In an announcement, the union stated the protection board had not too long ago begun requiring some witnesses to be electronically recorded.
However the security board stated in an announcement that recording interviews was a “longstanding apply” and that its workers had recorded interviews in “quite a few previous investigations involving business airways.” The board stated it had informed the American Airways pilots {that a} courtroom reporter would additionally report their testimony and supply them with a transcript that they might evaluate for accuracy.
The American Airways crew have seven days to answer the subpoenas, the company stated.
It stated it had reviewed written statements from the Delta crew, including that “their statements comprise ample info for N.T.S.B. investigative functions given their function within the incident.”
The cockpit recordings in each planes have been “overwritten,” the protection board stated, that means that they have been taped over, leaving no audio report of what pilots in both airplane stated to 1 one other through the incident. The tools that data cockpit conversations is designed to overwrite itself after two hours.
In its assertion, the protection board famous that it advisable in 2018 that the Federal Aviation Administration require that cockpit voice recorders be able to recording at the least 25 hours of audio.
Final week, a Southwest airplane and a FedEx jet narrowly averted a collision at Austin-Bergstrom Worldwide Airport in Texas.
