Posted on 07/02/2002 10:02:58 AM PDT by kattracks
UEBERLINGEN, Germany, Jul 02, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- A chartered Russian airliner had about a minute warning before slamming into a cargo plane over southern Germany, killing 71 people including 52 children headed for a beach vacation in Spain, officials said Tuesday.
Swiss air traffic control, which was in charge of the flight path of both planes, initially said it had given the Tupolev-154 roughly two minutes advance notice and that the pilot did not begin descending to avoid the cargo jet until a third request.
The Swiss revised their account after the German government agency for air accident investigations said the Russian pilot was given only about 50 seconds warning to change altitude and reacted after a second notice.
The German account of the incident said the Russian pilot changed course about 25 seconds before the collision 36,000 feet over Lake Constance.
Anton Maag, chief of the control tower at Zurich, said the initial warning, while only about a minute before the crash, "wasn't irresponsible but fairly tight."
It was Maag who initially said the warning was given two minutes before the crash and that the Russian pilot only reacted after a third was issued.
At the same time the Russian jet began moving lower, the cargo plane's automatic collision warning system issued an order to descend, and pilots are obliged to follow these instructions, Maag said.
The director of Bashkirian Airlines, Nikolai Odegov, said Swiss air traffic controllers were to blame for the accident, the Interfax news agency reported Tuesday evening.
"My theory is that it is the fault of the air traffic controllers, they put the planes on the same path," Odegov said. "There were no reasons to say that the pilots didn't handle the plane properly."
The head of Moscow's Domodedovo airport, from which the Bashkirian Airlines jet originated, also denied the Russian pilot failed to follow directions.
By Tuesday afternoon, investigators had recovered 26 bodies - some still strapped into seats - and had located the flight data recorder from the Tu-154. Twenty-two boats patrolled the waters looking for flotsam or telltale jet fuel slicks. Investigators said they located both planes' flight data recorders and the cockpit voice recorder of the cargo jet.
Wreckage and baggage was found at 57 sites, including corn and wheat fields, roadsides and next to houses, said Erwin Hedger, police chief of Baden-Wuerttemberg.
The parents of the children were high-ranking officials in Bashkortostan, a Russian republic in the southern Ural Mountains. Abas Galyamov of the republic's Moscow mission said the children were headed for a beach holiday on the Costa Dorada near Barcelona. The children were the best students at the UNESCO-affiliated school in Ufa, the Bashkirian capital.
Din Uzhin, a group leader for the students, told The Associated Press he was supposed to have flown with them but did not get his Spanish visa and stayed behind in Moscow.
"The parents of the children are calling nonstop asking whether I know anything about the fate of their children," he said Tuesday. "And I have to say time and again: Your children were on that plane."
The cargo plane was a Boeing 757 owned by DHL package delivery service, based in Brussels, Belgium, and San Francisco. It was flying from Bahrain to the company's hub in Brussels.
Patrick Herr, a spokesman for Swiss air traffic control, said it is not yet known why the warning system told pilots on the DHL plane to descend when the other plane was also decreasing altitude.
"There are two mysteries," Herr said. "Firstly, why the Tupolev pilot didn't react straight away. And secondly, why the automatic warning system of the Boeing also gave a descent order."
Marc Janssens, of Belgian air traffic control, told Belgian VRT television the Russian pilots might not have spoken English as well as required by international regulations. English is the language used by air traffic controllers globally.
"There was always an extra alarm when you heard a Russian accent on the line," Janssens said.
Russian aviation authorities angrily denied pilot error as a possible cause, saying the Tu-154 pilot had years of experience and spoke English well and would have understood instructions to descend.
Odegov, the Bashkirian Airlines director, said the Tupolev pilot was "experienced and knew English" and had regularly flown to Pakistan. The plane was built in 1995 and had been flown to several overseas destinations including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Sergei Rybanov, a Bashkirian Airlines representative in Moscow, said chief pilot, Alexander Gros, 52, had flown for 31 years and logged 12,000 hours flight time.
Sepp Moser, one of Switzerland's best known aviation experts, said on Swiss television that both the collision warning system on the Boeing and the actions of Swiss air traffic control should be investigated as well as the Russian plane's moves.
"I am astounded that (Swiss air traffic control) said they will only focus on two issues: on the Russian pilot and on the warning system in the freight plane. I think that the behavior of Swiss air traffic authorities should be examined on a second-by-second basis."
A European Union official denied this year's radical overhaul of Europe's air traffic management, halving the minimum distances between aircraft, was to blame for the tragedy.
"There's no link here," said Gilles Gantelet, a spokesman for the EU's executive commission. "The problem is that the plane wasn't where it was supposed to be. The only way to change that was in asking the plane to change route."
Witnesses said they heard a noise like thunder and saw a fireball erupt in the night sky, then saw pieces of wreckage falling to the ground and into Lake Constance. Scattered fires were sparked in the rural area, but there were no casualties on the ground.
Dirk Diestel, 47, was changing his child's diaper shortly before midnight when he looked up through a skylight and saw a huge fireball in the sky.
"Immediately I thought that something horrible had happened," he said. When he went outside, a large piece of one of the plane's landing gear was lying a few feet from his home.
Debris from the Tupolev's wing and fuselage also came down outside a house on the edge of Owingen, about two miles from where the tail was found. The nearest piece of wreckage was about 30 feet from the house and, while an awning was burned, the house was otherwise undamaged and the family inside unharmed.
More than 800 rescue workers were searching the area around the shores of Lake Constance, one of Europe's largest and shared by Austria, Germany and Switzerland. It is a popular vacation spot dotted with sailboats in the summer.
Axel Gietz, head of DHL corporate affairs in Brussels said both people aboard the cargo jet, the British pilot, Paul Phillips, and his Canadian co-pilot, Brant Campioni, were killed.
At the airport in Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan, parents of the children were trying to get to Germany and relatives were expected to arrive by Wednesday.
"If only they had flown on time, nothing would have happened," said a woman who was identified as the mother of 11-year-old Bulat Biglov. The group was supposed to have left Saturday for Spain, but missed its connection and had to wait. The woman, shown on NTV television, was in tears.
In addition to the 52 children on the Russian plane, there were five adults and 12 crew members. Adding the two pilots on the DHL plane, the death toll was 71.
By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS Associated Press Writer
Copyright 2002 Associated Press, All rights reserved
He's playing dumb. The warning system says to climb or descend depending on the plane's heading, there is no mystery. The Swiss are totally at fault in this, and they are doing their best to blame the victims rather than the living Swiss who caused the collision. It is sad to think that if the incompetent Swiss went back to their donuts the collision avoidance systems would have worked. Manslaughter charges are in order.
They were charge of the flight path of both planes
So if Russian airliner give order to descend they also give order to cargo jet to hold.
If the cargo plane's automatic collision warning system go's off and they descend that the fault of air traffic control not telling the cargo jet what going on and where the traffic is at.
They were charge of the flight path of both planes
So if Russian airliner is given orders to descend then air traffic control should also give orders to cargo jet to hold or at least let them know whats going on.
If the cargo plane's automatic collision warning system go's off and they descend, that the fault of air traffic control not telling the cargo jet where the traffic is at or will be going.
It's criminally incompetent not to have notified the DHL plane at all.
That how I see it too, its BS to try to scapegoat the Russian.
I'd like this scenario:
ATC: Russian flight 123... immediate descent, best rate, flight level three five zero, intersecting traffic, eleven o'clock, five miles... report level.
FLIGHT 123: 123 out of thirty six for thirty five, giving it all we have... looking for the traffic, no joy.
ATC: Cargo flight 456, intersecting traffic three o'clock, five miles, a Russian (whatever it is).. He's out of thirty six for thirty five...
FLIGHT 456: Looking....
FLIGHT 123: One twenty three level at flight level three five oh.... Cargo in sight....
ATC: Roger, maintain visual seperation... Cargo, the Russion has you in sight.
FLIGHT 456: Roger.
(thirty seconds passes)
ATC: Flight 123, Traffic now your five o'clock, three miles, no longer a factor. 456, traffic now your seven o'clock, five miles, no factor.
Both pilots acknowledge.
Point is, two minutes, one minute, even thirth seconds is more than enough time IF the pilots are on top of their game and paying attention.
Sometimes, however, it gets boring.
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