Posted on 08/29/2008 4:25:55 PM PDT by SilvieWaldorfMD
Russian, Delta Jets Nearly Collide Over Caribbean WASHINGTON (AP) ― Federal authorities say two airliners were a minute away from colliding when they turned away from each other over the Caribbean this week.
The National Transportation Safety Board says the Delta Air Lines flight and a Russian-registered passenger jet were heading toward each other north of Puerto Rico on Thursday when cockpit alarms went off.
In a statement Friday, the NTSB says the pilot of the Russian plane -- a Transaero Boeing 737 -- descended 200 to 300 feet to avoid Delta Flight 485.
The planes were 33,000 feet over the water and about 180 miles north of San Juan. The Delta aircraft was headed from New York's Kennedy International Airport to Port of Spain, Trinidad.
Russian "passenger" jet? Yeah, right.....
An dthis all occurs right over the 36,000+ feet deep Puerto Rico Trench? Hmmmmmm.......
Ping
Come on, what are you suggesting? A Russian 737 was playing chicken with a Delta jetliner? And BTW, the Puerto Rico Trench is 28,232 ft at Milwaukee Deep, the lowest point in the Atlantic Ocean, not 36,000 ft plus.
Please adjust your tin foil. The government’s mind rays are leaking through.
There’s no word as to where the Russian jet was headed to — or from.
Maybe it loaded with Russian tourists coming back from holiday from Cuba or Venezuela....
Maybe the Russian pilot was loaded, he almost smacked into another jet.
Which begs the question of what where the air traffic controllers — presumably either in Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic - whoever has jurisdiction over these waters — doing? Did they not see what was about to occur? Don’t ‘alarms’ also sound in the air traffic control areas?
60 seconds would still put them a considerable distance apart...
One, or both of the jets was flying at the wrong altitude for the route.
OR ... they were cleared en route to the wrong altitude by an international air traffic controller.
I doubt there was anything malicious here. Negligent and stupid, sure.
About 9 miles apart.
Well, just darn. You've got me now. This sort of thing has never happened before in the history of aviation. Particularly among Russian pilots, notably sober as they are. There's a conspiracy going on here, made even more obvious by the fact that the Russian pilot managed to duck at the last moment. Keep on the case, and expand it to the whole Bermuda Triangle Conspiracy. You'll make a fortune on the book and movie rights.
It was an air traffic screwup, mostly by San Juan Cerap, which is an FAA facility. 180 miles north of San Juan would be right on the extreme edge of radar coverage, so its likely that nonradar separation procedures were being used. The error was not charged to New York Center which controls the nonradar airpace from about 200 miles north of San Juan all the way north to New England coastal waters. I can probably find out exactly what happened.
Aeroflot?
Good thing the Russian pilot actually listened to his TCAS. Something similar happened over Germany and the pilot chose to ignore the TCAS instructions leading to a mid-air killing all aboard his plane and the pilots of a DHL cargo a/c.
LOL!
I flew Aeroflot from Moscow to Leningrad back in June of 1988...... very scary......
It’s a legitimate question, X. I’m *far* from being a conspiracy theorist..... puh-leeze!
The story (right above) says it was Transaero.
I’ve flown Aeroflot from Delhi to Singapore, Kabul to Tashkent, Tashkent to Alma Ata, Alma Ata to Moscow, and Moscow to Helsinki, all a LONG time ago, on Russian aircraft.
The only one of these that was “scary” was the flight from Tashkent to Alma Ata in a plane that looked and felt like a bomber conversion. The thing had seats made of aluminum frames and nylon mesh, fer cryin’ out loud, and the pilot flew the thing like it was a fighter jet. Passenger comfort was the LAST thing on his mind.
But, the flight was a successful one, as my present typing attests.
Wow, that’s quite a flight itinerary! Very interesting places to land....
I still remember my flight from New York’s JFK to Helsinki on Finnair.... the 3-letter code for Helsinki was HEL, so my friends and I were joking that “We’re going to HEL!” The train ride from Helsinki to Moscow was frightening, though. It was nearly the end of the Cold War, but military personnel boarded the train halfway to Moscow to check our baggage.... we were 20-year-old American students who were in the Soviet Studies program, so for us it was intriguing and exciting — not so much for our teachers & chaperones....
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