Hi,
Last night I was a passenger on United 5772 from IAD to LGA. The flight was delayed for about 5 hours, and finally gained takeoff clearance from IAD at 7:16 PM EST 12/27/11. LGA is a bumpy landing under normal conditions, but we ended up aborting the landing at LGA and landing at BDL. It seems like we're getting more and more of these flash weather conditions lately in the NE.
My hat goes off to the pilots for successfully aborting the landing and bringing us down safely at BDL, because the conditions were extremely bad and the CRJ was practically out of control on the LGA approach. From my seat in 1A I could hear multiple warning indicators going off in the cockpit.
So, I'm reconstructing the ATC from this flight. So far I have the IAD takeoff and departure communications, and will check out the LGA approach next, followed by BDL.
Questions-
1. Why is LGA tower unavailable?
2. Newb question, why are ATC recordings so noisy in general? As a lay-person it's surprising how indiscernable some of the recordings are given the current technology. Are they clearer to the pilots and controllers?