WASHINGTON - The pilot of a plane involved in a midair collision over the Hudson River read back the wrong radio frequency to an air traffic controller but wasn’t corrected by the controller, a federal safety official said yesterday.
National Transportation Safety Board chairman Deborah Hersman told a congressional committee yesterday that shortly after the Piper took off from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, a Teterboro controller handed off the plane to nearby Newark Liberty International. During the handoff, the controller instructed the Piper pilot to contact Newark and gave him the frequency.
However, air traffic control recordings show the frequency the pilot read back was incorrect, Hersman said. There is no indication that any controller heard the incorrect readback or attempted to correct it, she said.
The plane collided with an air tour helicopter. All three people aboard the plane and a pilot and five Italian tourists aboard the helicopter were killed.
