air traffic controller made cat-eating jokes before hudson river crash

Remember the plane that collided with a helicopter over the Hudson River in August, killing nine people? Just before the crash, the air traffic controller who handled the plane was joking with a female airport worker about a dead cat: Chuckling, joking in control tower before NY crash.

What? Audio recordings released by the FAA reveal that the controller and an airport operations worker laughing about a dead cat the woman had removed from an airport taxiway. Well, yeah. Because that's hilarious. And during all the fun and laughts, a joke about how Chinese people eat cats:

1:50:41 a.m., the Teterboro controller gets on the phone with a woman from the airport's operations center. "Do we have plenty of gas for the grill?" he asks.

Operations: "Huh?"

Controller: "I said, we got plenty of gas in the grill?"

Operations: "(unintelligible) it kinda sucks that we can't, we won't be able to do it today."

Controller: "(unintelligible) fire up the cat," a reference to a dead cat found earlier at the airport.

Operations: "Ooh, disgusting. Augh, that thing was disgusting."

Controller: "Chinese people do it, so why can't we?"

Operations: "Augh, stop it."

Controller: (laughter).

So hilarious. Let me reiterate that the crash killed nine people -- three on the small plane and six on the helicopter. But perhaps the guy should've been doing his job -- oh, I don't know -- directing air traffic, instead of making Chinese cat-eating jokes. More here: Air Traffic Controller Transcripts Released In Hudson River Plane, Helicopter Crash.