Posted on 07/02/2002 11:00:37 AM PDT by HAL9000
MOSCOW, JULY 2 /from RIA Novosti's Eduard Puzyryov/ - Officials at the State Civil Aviation Service of Russia's Transport Ministry surmise that the crash of the Russian Tupolev 154 airliner over Germany may have happened "due to a concurrence of a great number of negative circumstances." A high-ranking specialist with the service, who asked that his named not be used, told RIA Novosti Tuesday one such circumstance was that the paths of the Boeing 757 cargo plane and the Tupolev, which was on a charter flight, crossed both in time and in altitude. Parameters set for regular and charter flights are not normally coordinated, the source pointed out.Apparently, the Russian air officials added, European ground controllers intervened too late in a situation that was already heading toward a disaster. Swiss air traffic controllers had warned the Tupolev flight of imminent danger just 50 seconds before the collision. The Russian crew requested confirmation, and the Swiss air traffic controllers elaborated that another plane was in their flight passage in the night sky, instructing the Russian crew once again to lower their altitude to give way for the regular cargo flight above them.
"Now subtract the time for that repeated elaboration from the 50 seconds available. Did the airliner captain, the experienced 1st class pilot Alexander Gross, really have the time to dive under the cargo Boeing 757? Didn't the head-on collision happen on the main path?" civil aviation service officials wondered out loud.
Only flight data recorders and radar data would now tell if the two planes really tried to reduce altitude before they collided. The small fragments of the planes' hulls left over from the fireball would hardly yield anything of value, the officials said, reiterating the importance of black box records prior to the collision.
A fact-finding mission comprising experts from the service and the Inter-State Aviation Committee, which investigates passenger plane crashes, left for the disaster site at 6 pm Moscow Time from Domodedovo Airport, the source disclosed to RIA Novosti.
You folks are all forgetting that the airspace between Switerland, Germany and Austria is very notorious for having a lot of complicated procedures because you have to deal with the Air Traffic Control (ATC) systems of three different countries. When you have the Swiss ATC tell the Russian plane to descend to avoid a collision and the German ATC telling the 757 freighter to descend to do the same, the result was this unnecessary tragedy. :-(
There has been talk of a pan-European single-entity ATC system to make flights across Europe a lot safer; this tragedy points the urgent need to have such a system in place as soon as possible.
Tupelov154 "Swiss ATC, could you please repeat that".
SwissATF - "Tupelov 154, you are on a collision course with another aircraft, immediately reduce your altitude to twenty eight five hundred".
Tupelov154 - "Swiss ATC, please confirm that we are in immiment collision danger".
SwissATF - "Tupelov 154, it is confirmed that you are imminent danger of collision. Please reduce your altitude to twenty eight five hundred immediately".
Tupelov154 - "Roger Swiss ATC. Please repeat the altitude you want us to descend to".
SwissATF - "Twenty eight five hundred".
Tupelov154 - "Roger Swiss ATC, please confirm you want us to drop to twenty eight five hundred".
SwissATC - "Roger Tupelov 154, twenty eight five hundred".
Tupelov154 - "Twenty eight five hundred confirmed, we are beginning our descent now...hey, what's that big white thinging?"
Would that be Swiss German for "Tupolev"?
Reports by JAL indicate that the pilots of the two aircraft, carrying a total of nearly 700 people, may have received confusing instructions from air traffic controllers.
The near-collision, involving a JAL Boeing 747 en route from Tokyo's Haneda airport to Naha, Okinawa Prefecture, and a JAL DC-10 heading to Narita airport from Pusan, South Korea, injured 42 passengers and crew members, some of them seriously, on the Naha flight when the pilot took radical evasive action.
There were no injuries aboard the DC-10, which was carrying 250 passengers and crew members.
The collision warning systems in both aircraft apparently went off.
Capt. Makoto Watanabe, 40, of the Boeing 747-40D, JAL Flight 907, reported that the two planes avoided a collision by just 10 meters when they were flying about 36,600 feet above the city of Yaizu, Shizuoka Prefecture.
"At the closest point, the altitude difference was 10 meters; lateral distance none," the report said.
Watanabe submitted the brief, one-page accident report to the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry early Thursday, ministry officials said.
Transport Ministry officials said the postincident report filed by the DC-10 captain, Tatsuyuki Akazawa, 45, also said the two planes missed each other by a whisker.
"Altitude difference little, lateral distance none," said the report submitted by Akazawa, who was piloting JAL Flight 958.
The closest altitude separation recorded at the air-route traffic control center in Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture, was about 120 meters. But the system measures location and altitude only every 10 seconds, making it impossible to pinpoint the exact locations of the planes at all times.
An air accident committee under the ministry was hastily analyzing the report and flight data while interviewing the pilots and crew of the two jets.
JAL 907 had 427 passengers and crew members aboard when it nearly collided with JAL 958 at around 3:55 p.m. Wednesday.
The pilot of Flight 907 took the Boeing 747-40D into a sudden dive to avoid the collision, hurling many on board who were not strapped into their seats toward the ceiling.
According to police, at least two people were seriously injured and were rushed to hospitals after JAL 907 returned to Haneda and landed at 4:44 p.m. Two witnesses said they saw a flight attendant who had been thrown into a ceiling panel stuck there with her leg dangling down.
JAL released brief reports to the press quoting Captain Watanabe of JAL 907 and Captain Akazawa of JAL 958 which reveal that controllers gave instructions to the pilots apparently contradicting what the planes' automatic collision warning systems were ordering them to do.
About one minute before the near-collision, JAL 907 was climbing from around 35,000 feet toward 39,000 feet, while JAL 958 was cruising at 37,000 feet.
When the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) sounded aboard both aircraft, JAL 907 was ordered to continue to climb, while JAL 958 was told to descend.
Immediately before the TCAS warning, however, a ground controller had ordered JAL 907 to descend. The pilot followed that instruction despite the TCAS warning.
As a result, the two airplanes nearly collided at an altitude of 36,000 feet as JAL 958 had adhered to the TCAS instructions and was descending.
The transport ministry also released radio transcripts late on Wednesday night, revealing that the two controllers' instructions were confusing.
According to the radio transcripts, one of the two controllers referred to a "JAL 957" in urging either JAL 907 or 958 to "immediately descend" in giving instructions to avoid a collision. There was no JAL Flight 957 in the area at the time.
Ministry officials also revealed Thursday morning that the other controller was a trainee for the airspace in question, although he is a qualified controller for other areas and has three years of experience.
The trainee, whose name has not been disclosed, began training at Tokorozawa on Aug. 31, according to the officials.
He was the one giving most of the instructions to the pilots during the time when the planes were on a collision course.
It usually takes at least one year to complete training to qualify as a controller of a designated airspace, ministry officials said.
At a press conference Wednesday, JAL Vice President Yasushi Yuasa admitted, "There is a possibility that one of the pilots may have misinterpreted the controllers' instructions."
At 3:54 p.m, the trainee twice urged JAL 958 to turn right to avoid a collision.
But the aircraft did not respond or change course, according to radio and radar records.
Both planes were equipped with the Traffic Collision Avoidance System, a cockpit warning device.
Police on Thursday inspected the Boeing standing at Haneda airport and collected a digital flight data recorder and voice recorder from the cockpit for its investigation into suspected professional negligence.
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