Mid-Air Collision video (2002)

[Midnight Mike]

One of the wrost mid-air collision in that last few years. Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937, registration RA-85816, was a Tupolev 154M passenger jet en route from Moscow, Russia to Barcelona, Spain. DHL Flight 611, registration A9C-DHL, was a Boeing 757-200 cargo jet flying from Bergamo, Italy to Brussels, Belgium. The two aircraft collided in mid-air on July 1, 2002 at
21:35 (UTC) over Überlingen, Germany (near Lake Constance), killing all 71 aboard both aircraft.

German investigators determined that the accident had been caused by problems within the air traffic control system[1]; and the controller who was on duty at the time, Peter Nielsen, was later stabbed to death by an architect who lost his wife and both of his children in the accident


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 9830845243 (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7025897569830845243)

[Derf]

Great find on a horrible accident. It truly was a shame. No I wear out the rug waiting for the video to load. I hate Slow computer, slow wireless and firewalls/antivirus. The first 30 seconds really gets your attention.

Thanks Mike

[Derf]

I think this is bullcrap.... controller my ass, fine final hole in the swiss chesse here was the
fact that the Pilots were not doint the right thing in the russian plane. NEVER LISTEN TO A CONTROLLER OVER TCAS... JACKA$$es in the russian aircraft killed them all..... cough Or lack of training. There were layers of protection to stop human error, it is called 2
computers that you OBEY called TCAS!

(The controller was a minor part as the system ignored was designed for such a situation,
failure to follow the instructions given were the issue....no?)

[Nonstop2AUH]

Like most accidents it seems like there were many factors at play here, and if any one of them were different the outcome would have been better. In fact, something I never knew before seeing this video was that the children were not even supposed to have been on that flight. Also wasn't aware that in non-Western countries (Russia, Japan etc.) prior to this event there was no clear requirement to obey the TCAS over the controller. But to me the most obvious negligence was for Skyguide to send in maintenence apparently without prior warning to the controllers and without providing adequate backup to compensate for the degraded abilities of their system while work was going on. This resulted in Nielsen's workload suddenly increasing while the resources at his disposal decreased, and he just didn't notice the impending collision early enough.

[Derf]

......prior to this event there was no clear requirement to obey the TCAS over the controller.....

I do understand your points... My stance is that the pilot in the plane should have understood how the system worked, if they knew that.... there would be no questions about who to listen to... if it is in the aircraft and the pilots were trained on this, they should have obeyed it reguarless of what any law or comapny policy or controller would have stated period. If they did not follow it, they were not properly trained on that device and did not know how it worked. Training or the pilot

then there is the controller, but he was overworked so it could be the lack of communication on systems maintnecne or do we blame the controller.

So we have pilot training or pilot, controller workload or controller and then finally we have the unscheduled mantinace that can be to blame.

My only point is that TCAS is suppose to end any questions. Alert is issued follow
instructions period unless you have aircraft in question in sight and need to evade....but then too you are just following TCAS...and soiling yourself at the same time.