Safety investigators subpoena pilots over close call at JFK
Federal investigators said Friday they have issued subpoenas to force the pilots of an American Airlines jet to sit for recorded interviews about a close call on a runway at New York’s Kennedy Airport last month.
The National Transportation Safety Board said it attempted to interview the crew members three times, but a union representative said the pilots refused to have their statements recorded.
“NTSB has determined that this investigation requires that the flight crew interviews be audio recorded and transcribed by a court reporter to ensure the highest degree of accuracy, completeness, and efficiency,” the agency said in a preliminary report. “As a result of the flight crew’s repeated unwillingness to proceed with a recorded interview, subpoenas for their testimony have been issued.”
The NTSB also won’t hear any conversation that took place among the three pilots in the cockpit during the incident — in some cases, a very valuable investigative tool. The recording was taped over when the crew took off for London shortly after the close call.
The NTSB said the American Airlines Boeing 777 crossed an active runway on Jan. 13 without approval from air traffic controllers, and that led to a close call with a Delta Air Lines Boeing 737 that was taking off on the same runway.
Disaster was averted when an air traffic controller, using an expletive, urgently told pilots of the Delta jet to stop their takeoff. Audio recordings show that the controller immediately communicated the severity of the situation to the American Airlines crew.
The pilots have not been identified. The union that advised them not to sit for interviews said it objects that NTSB now records such interviews instead of merely taking notes, which the union says is accurate enough.
“NTSB investigations are intended to be fact-finding proceedings with no adverse parties. We do not believe that this should be an adversarial issue,” the Allied Pilots Association said in a statement.
The union said that changing the interviews from notes to recordings “discourages otherwise cooperative witnesses from participating in the factfinding process” and runs against the purpose of promoting safety.