Actually, you can transmit silence if you want to. But, you absolutely have to have positive control of the transmitter. Meaning that you should have the capability to turn the transmitter off within three hours of loss of remote control, or within three hours of being notified of a problem such as over-power or off-frequency operation. If they lost their STL, they probably lost their remote control, too. Without the remote control; they had no way of knowing what the transmitter might be doing. Thus, by regulation, they no longer had positive control. So, not having an engineer or somebody who could go to the site and shut the transmitter within the required time limit, the fail-safe should have taken over and shut the transmitter down, automatically. Otherwise, they were in violation of the FCC regs.
In this case, they probably didn't even have anyone remotely resembling an engineer who could go to the transmitter and make sure things were under control, there. Most stations try to run with just a contract engineer, who could be hours away when you need them the most. If they had anyone, at all, they probably had them working on getting the studio back up and running, so they could continue making money. Most managers don't even think about the transmitter, until it goes off the air for lack of attention.
The satirical comment about the engineer being totally unnecessary is, unfortunately, true. Most companies see the engineer's paltry salary as an drain on the bottom line, rather than cheap insurance that can keep them out of trouble with the feds. And, the feds are too strapped with other bureaucratic crap to do anything about companies that try to live on the edge, without one. Only when they have to pay a hefty fine for improper operation does the engineer's salary begin to look like a small price to pay for such insurance.
IMHO, they should be totally embarassed that things went on as long as they did. Maybe they'll read this post, it'll have the desired effect and they'll hire one of those good engineers who have been on the street for far too long.
