Pilot Never Made Clear Jet’s Plight, Controllers Say

Air traffic controllers Monday defended their handling of an ill-fated Colombian jetliner, claiming that the pilot did not clearly communicate how critically low on fuel his aircraft was as it flew through delays and stormy weather toward New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.

The rebuttal followed allegations Sunday by the National Transportation Safety Board that the pilot told regional controllers he needed a “priority landing” and the message was not relayed to the radar facility responsible for guiding the plane to runways at JFK.

The Avianca Boeing 707 en route from Bogota to New York plunged into a wooded hillside in the affluent community of Cove Neck alongside Long Island Sound on Thursday night, killing 73 of the 159 people on board. Investigators have determined all four engines were not operating and the aircraft apparently ran out of fuel.

“The Avianca pilot never declared a ‘fuel emergency’ or a ‘minimum fuel,’ both of which would have triggered an emergency response by controllers,” said R. Steve Bell, President of the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn. “Tragically, the pilot said only he was low on fuel, which is a very common occurrence in bad weather and holding.”

The Federal Aviation Administration also backed the controllers Monday.

Fred Farrar, a spokesman for the FAA in Washington, said when the Avianca pilot used the word “priority” in speaking with ground controllers, the word had “no particular meaning in air traffic control.”

“If there is an emergency, you use the word ‘emergency,’ ” he said.

But the National Transportation Safety Board refused to back down.

An NTSB spokesman said the FAA version of events “is not a fair reflection of what happened.”

“We’re conducting this investigation, not the FAA,” an NTSB official added. The FAA employs the nation’s air traffic controllers, while the NTSB investigates transportation accidents.

Farrar cited portions of preliminary FAA transcripts of conversations between the pilot of the doomed airliner and New York approach controllers.

After flying in three weather-related delays along the East Coast that added 89 minutes of flying time, the crew of the jetliner radioed New York regional controllers at 8:45 p.m. that “we think we may need priority.”

“How long can you hold before you have to go to your alternate?” a regional controller asked. The alternate landing field for the jet was Boston.

“Wait a minute,” the pilot replied, pausing and apparently checking with other crew members. “We can hold five minutes.”

Farrar said that shortly afterwards, the co-pilot said the alternate site was “Boston. I can’t make it.”

The FAA official said the regional controller then telephoned the center handling approaches to Kennedy. He said the regional controller said the Avianca plane had just emerged from a holding pattern “and can only do five more minutes of hold. Can you take him now?”

“Slow him to 180 knots and I will take him,” the local controller replied.

The plane was forced to abort its landing at Kennedy 37 minutes later because it was descending too steeply. Minutes later it crashed into the hillside, apparently out of fuel.

Bell of the controllers association said that after the pilot missed his first approach, “the controller working the aircraft described exactly to the pilot the pattern he intended to use to bring him back to Kennedy. The controller then asked the pilot if his condition allowed for that pattern. The answer was, ‘yes.’ ”

“No one knew how perilous was this situation until it was far too late,” Bell added.

A key element in the conflict between the two federal agencies is what information was related in the phone conversation between controllers.

Mike Benson, a spokesman for the NTSB, said the phone message “may not fully reflect what went on.”

“There may be more to that conversation,” he said. “It may need to be judged in a fuller context.”

On Sunday, the NTSB said that in interviews it conducted at the Kennedy approach facility, none of the controllers involved with the Avianca flight recalled being told by regional controllers that the pilot had requested a priority landing. “That information should have been passed on,” said Lee Dickinson, a member of the NTSB.

The dispute between the federal agencies aside, other pilots and air safety experts said Monday that final responsibility in such situations always rests with the pilot, who should either clearly declare an emergency or seek an alternate landing field before fuel becomes critically low.

Wally Roberts, an airline pilot and a safety expert with the Airline Pilots Assn., said that in the United States a pilot normally would not ask for a priority landing when low on fuel. The pilot would tell controllers: “ ‘I am in a minimum fuel situation’. It’s a term that controllers understand,” Roberts said.

“If a pilot called in and asked for a priority landing, I’d ask him what his problem was,” said Karl Grundmann, an air traffic controller and president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn. at the Los Angeles Terminal Radar Approach Control facility.

“Pilots are sometimes reluctant on the air to declare an emergency,” Grundmann continued. “All sorts of people listen to those frequencies and they don’t like everyone to get excited. They will use other words like: ‘We’d like a priority landing.’

“If he says he is running low on fuel, I have to find out how much and how much time he has. I would normally notify the supervisor. I would ask him (the pilot): ‘Are you declaring an emergency?’

“What it sounds like, there was a lack of communications, something that should never have happened,” Grundmann said.

Eric Malnic reported from Los Angeles and John J. Goldman from New York. Staff writer Hector Tobar in New York contributed to this story.