Originally Posted by
LarryJ
That was the departure controller. He can't clear them to land on any runways because he has no idea if the runways are clear. His job is to get him to the runway that he wants then either transfer him to the appropriate local (tower) controller or get the landing clearance over the interphone from that local controller and relay it to the emergency aircraft. Of course, in an emergency such as this the crew doesn't really care that much about getting an actual landing clearance. They will tell the controllers where they are going to land then they'll land--clearance or no clearance.
The last part of your statement is what I'm getting at. They are at 3,000 feet dropping some 8 NM from LGA and the TRACON/Dept. Controller says "do you want 13 at LGA?" 13 is the closest runway to them at LGA. The Capt. says UNABLE. He then proceeds to offer him a left downwind to Runway 31...the other end of 13 and further away. If he couldn't make 13 he sure as heck wasn't making 31. A wasted transmisson that was followed by a "give me left traffic to Rwy 4"...all this before the Capt. asked about Teterboro.
The above statements about Runway 31 and 4 were played on the original CNN broadcast y'day morning but were conveniently edited out of all of the evening newscasts. The level of heroism and skill of the controller definitely raised as in those clips it appears (and the anchors say) Sully and ATC immediately sight Teterboro and make arrangements to land there....not really what happened.
All in all I will say that in the situation the level of communication among the ATC facilities (TRACON, LGA Tower and particularly Teterboro Tower) was surprisingly agile and the controller and pilot did an admirable job overall given the circumstances.