Originally Posted by
mijbil
I listened to the audio on the link provided by Green Flash. My experience with LA centre is that they are great but the last request by the controller was a bit off. "Can I give you the number for LA centre so you can call them on the ground?" Are you kidding? He's down to 2 engines and isn't sure about a fire. Leave him alone. My 2 cents..
Actually, it does make sense. In one of the recordings you can hear (the ATC side anyway), that there is solid two-way communications most of the way down, so the crew had obviously had spare capacity to deal with ATC, as well as fly down. They might not be able to contact ATC on the radio once on the ground, either due loss of signal, or aircraft damage prohibiting its use, and so a phone number would allow the crew to contact ATC and apprise them of their status once on the ground, to allow for further assistance to be dispatched as needed.