STL PD/FAA Collude to Keep Media Aircraft Away from Ferguson

The FAA issues a Temporary Flight Restriction at the request of the St. Louis County Police Department to keep media helicopters away from the Ferguson protests. The area of the TFR initially restricts commercial aircraft from landing and departing St. Louis Lambert International Airport it's so large.



The FAA is required to record all official phone calls and the Associated Press received recordings of the conversations after an FOIA request.

Quote:

Manager: "I was talking to Jim, the FLM (front-line manager) in the tower, and I was talking to Chris at St. Louis County Police. The commander at St. Louis County wanted 3 (nautical) miles and 8,000 feet and I talked him down to 3 and 5. They finally admitted it really was to keep the media out... but they were a little concerned of, obviously, anything else that could be going on." Manager, later in the same conversation: "I'd like you to talk to the tower and get the coordination going again with the police department. They did not care if you ran commercial traffic through this TFR (temporary flight restriction) all day long. They didn't want media in there. ... There's no option for a TFR that says, you know, 'OK, everybody but the media is OK.'" FAA employee: "Right, right ... And that's how we're interpreting this. We, we know what the intent is, but the way the thing comes out, it doesn't read like that at all."

Will anyone be held accountable for this sleazy behavior?