Updated 08/17/2009 06:09 PM
NTSB Kicks Air Traffic Controllers Union Out Of Crash Investigation
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The federal government is kicking the air traffic controller's union out of the investigation into the fatal midair collision over the Hudson.
The National Transportation Safety Board says the National Air Traffic Controllers Association has been improperly commenting about the investigation in the media. Normal procedure is for the NTSB to take the lead on media matters.
Earlier Monday, the union publicly took issue with an NTSB statement that inferred that a New Jersey air traffic controller could have prevented the collision of the helicopter and a small plane earlier this month that killed nine people.
The union said the air traffic controller "had neither seen nor known about the accident helicopter at the transfer of communication at Newark."
In response, the NTSB released a timeline of the events leading up to the crash.
It says 20 seconds before the August 8th collision, the radar data showed a conflict between the airplane and helicopter.
The safety board says at that time, the controller was on a personal phone call – and did not get off the phone until one second before the crash.