Hi,

just in case you have missed the sad news:

There has happened a severe aircrash near southern Germany's Lake
Bodensee yesterday about 21:40 Z (23:40 local time). A russian charter
aircraft with about 60-70 people, mainly teenagers on a vacation trip to
Spain, hit a DHL cargo freighter coming from Arabia. The aircrafts
exploded and debris fell down in about a radius of 30km around the
suspected crash site. Luckily no one on the ground was injured although
large aircraft parts had hit the ground only a few meters from the
buildings. All passengers and crew are considered to be dead.

At first, it was assumed that the russian aircraft did not react in a
timely manner on an order of swiss air control center to change the
altitude. Latest news however seem to say that at least one of two
controllers in the control center has had a break at the time of the
crash and that the order for changing altitude might have come too late
(only 50 seconds before the crash). It further seems, that at least one
plane if not both had activated their automatic traffic approach
warnings and tried an emergency descent which brought them on collision
course again.

Regards,

Guido

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• RE: Aircrash,jonahbird, 23:10z, 07-02-02
• RE: Aircrash,Ben_Chiu, 23:31z, 07-02-02
  • RE: Aircrash,Guido_Ostkamp, 17:06z, 07-03-02
  • RE: Aircrash,James, 17:09z, 07-03-02
• RE: Aircrash,Guido_Ostkamp, 15:51z, 07-12-02
  • RE: Aircrash,Ben_Chiu, 17:16z, 07-12-02

Guido

This is sad sad news. Some 50 schoolchildren perished in this disaster.

What a terrible coincidence of events. Air Traffic Control not as alert as they should be, and two aircraft at that collision point in the vastness of space at 36,000 feet.

It must call into question the safety of the operational flight levels of traffic covering routes that cross.

Our thoughts and sympathies must be with all the families who have suffered this grievous loss.

Greetings Guido:

Do you know whether ATC in charge of that area is privatized or run by the government?

I just read a story (well, yet another) about some near misses and plain old screw ups in the UK and since it's being proposed to privatize ATC here in the US, it'd be interesting to know how other countries are doing with it.

Thanks!

Ben

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Hi Ben,

> Do you know whether ATC in charge of that area is privatized or run by
> the government?

The company who is in charge in this area (mainly Switzerland and some
parts of Germany) is SkyGuide. It has been privatized in 1996, but ATC
was formerly run by the same organization under a different name, owned
by state, so I think the people are the same.

Read more about this (in English language) at
http://www.skyguide.ch/scripts/asp/welcome_e.asp.

Regards,

Guido

-OLR.PL v1.76-

Hi Ben et al,

News today confirmed that the said Controllers have gone Private (you take it from there). It has also been stated that the TCAS on the ground was switched off for maintenance!! All flight deck recorders are now in Germany being scrutanised.

With the UK part's of this have gone private and I'm just waiting for one mega mess up over here!

Regards,

James (CONman) Anderson

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Hi,

> It further seems, that at least one plane if not both had activated
> their automatic traffic approach warnings and tried an emergency
> descent which brought them on collision course again.

investigations regarding this aircrash have shown that both aircrafts
had their anti-collision system activated, one was instructed to descend
and the other one to climb. That would have been ok, but the pilot of
the plane which should climb, followed instructions from ATC to descend,
so that the crash happened.

What do the FAA rules state regarding this? What has priority, the
instructions of the anti-collision systems or those from ATC?

Regards,

Guido

-OLR.PL v1.76-

Greetings Guido:

> What do the FAA rules state regarding this? What has priority, the
> instructions of the anti-collision systems or those from ATC?

The buck stops with PIC (Pilot in Command). I don't think there is any rule about having to listen to the TCAS. Perhaps there's a lesson to be learned here.

Ben

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