FAA smarter than it seems?
When I read about the FAA suspending two controllers after this incident, I had a weird thought: What if someone smart at the FAA were deliberately using the controller suspensions as a kind of stalking horse to discourage any other calls for "doing something"?
It's like this: People who have more emotion than brains call immediately for "doing something" after this very rare and unusual accident. They want heavy regulation, radar, ATC, bans on GA or helicopter traffic, yadda yadda. Someone at the FAA sees the folly and foolishness in acting on these irrational calls to action, so they look around as the NTSB investigates, and, lo, they find that two controllers at Teterboro were breaking the rules. So they suspend the controllers and issue a press release, emphasizing that these controllers were at the same airport that talked to the Piper in the accident, and mentioning that they probably had nothing to do with the accident only in the fine print.
What's the effect? The media latch on to the controller suspensions. This is presented and accepted as "doing something." Attention is diverted from calls for heavier regulation or other inappropriate actions. The controllers' mistakes had nothing to do with the accident, but that detail is deliberately understated by all. Result: No changes need be made to the airspace or regulations in order to "do something," since "something has been done" by suspending those nasty controllers.
Thus, it could be a very clever ploy to avoid much more damaging changes to the status quo, which has proven incredibly safe for many years.
As for the controllers, well, they lose. However, they WERE breaking the rules, and the actions taken against them are perfectly legitimate and justified, even if they had nothing to do with the accident. They took their chances by breaking the rules, and they got caught.
Am I giving the FAA too much credit?