Clarification re: Flight 1549 New York TRACON Audio

I am the training office for the Volunteer Fire Dept. that I belong to and I am putting together a training session on communications, the effects of stress on performance and CRM (Crew Resource Management in the fire service, as opposed to Cockpit RM).

I am going to be using the example of Flight 1549 for some of the presentation and while researching the transcript for that incident there is a point where the TRACON controller says the following:

3:29:05 L116 Teterboro, Empire– actually LaGuardia Departure got an emergency inbound.

In this transmission the controller mispeaks by saying "Empire", and then immediately corrects himself.

I can't seem to find a reference to any kind of airport or flight control center in the New York area that goes by the name "Empire".

More for my own curiosity that anything else, can anybody tell me what the "Empire" reference might mean?

Thx.

I messaged back and forth on one of the forums with a controller from Newark Tower. If I can find his name, I'll pass it along to you--he should be able to answer your question.

For some good information on stress and performance, you might track down a copy of "On Combat" by Lt. Col. David Grossman. His book is aimed primarily at law enforcement or the military, but he does an excellent job of explaining the physiological aspects of what happens to the human body under stress (temporal distortion-time dilation, tunnel vision, loss of fine motor skills, etc.). It was recommended to me by an instructor in a volunteer law enforcement program I'm involved with, but I was most interested in the book because of how the chapters on stress were applicable to my job as a pilot as well. I found the entire book fascinating--not just the physiological parts. Grab a copy--I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Maybe Bill can chime in here to clarify, but "Empire" is one of the NY area low level sectors. It's an internal designation only, and not used over ATC frequencies.