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Jet in 'near miss' with Heathrow airline over London
9 Sep 2010Pilots called today for better warning systems in private jets after a near-miss above London.
Accident investigators said that an airliner carrying 232 passengers passed close to an executive jet taking off from London City Airport.
Pilots, including a trainee, on the Turkish Airlines Boeing 777 to Heathrow ignored three warning messages and the German-owned Citation 525 had poor alert systems.
Pilots' union Balpa said: “Executive flying is increasing. Regardless of the size of aircraft, if you're flying the same airspace doing the same thing, they should have the same safety systems fitted.”
The Accidents Investigation Branch report said the Citation was cleared by the City Airport control tower to climb to 3,000 feet, but the crew acknowledged the instruction by saying they would climb to 4,000 feet - a mistake not noticed on the ground.
The Boeing 777 had been cleared to descend to 4,000 feet, the height at which it passed the Citation, which had two crew and one passenger aboard.
The AAIB report, which described the events of the afternoon of July 27 over Hackney as a “serious incident”, said the Boeing 777 had not “followed the commands” from three on-board collision-avoidance warnings.
A pilot in the observer seat of the Heathrow plane saw the Citation “pass west of them at an estimated 100 to 200ft below”.
The Citation captain later filed a report in which he stated the crew was given clearance to climb to 4,000ft.
He said he had the Boeing 777 in sight “all the time” and thought his aircraft would be “well above” the Boeing as he crossed its track.
But the AAIB said that if the weather had been bad the Citation would not have been able to see the Boeing, making “the only barrier to a potential mid-air collision” the collision avoidance system.
The report said that the avoidance system did not resolve the incident as the Boeing crew did not respond to the in-flight alerts in time and the Citation did not have a collision-avoidance piece of equipment known as TCAS II.
The AAIB recommended that the Civil Aviation Authority considered whether TCAS II should be mandatory for certain aircraft operating in the London City-Heathrow area.
It also said that the instructions from London City to maintain a height of 3,000ft should be given separately from the remainder of the flight take-off clearance and require a separate readback from the crew.
A spokeswoman for air traffic control service Nats said: “Nats has conducted its own internal safety investigation and implemented measures to prevent a recurrence of the factors attributable to air traffic control in this incident.”
No one from Turkish Airlines was available for comment.
Reader views (12)
Turkish airline ? more like 'ticklish' airlines when it comes to safety. The warning system most likely sounded in the cockpit and the pilot thought it meant have another coffee?
- Richard Merrell, Wentworth Falls, NSW Australia, 09/09/2010 23:32
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Fair point Bob of Cheam but the fact remains that is the only incident of this nature that has actually occurred over a major city, apart from the Twin Towers, in recent times.
- SqUiz, IslIngton, 09/09/2010 16:42
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Ultimately, aviation safety – whether in a scheduled airliner or a private jet – is about a combination of modern, well maintained aircraft, and the experience and training of the pilot. Private jets are as safe - if not more so - than commercial airlines but to ensure ongoing confidence in the sector (and their own commercial success), private jet operators and brokers such as PrivateFly.com have an obligation to perform ongoing due diligence. This should include ensuring that aircraft have the most up-to-date safety systems and highly experienced crew.
- Viv, PrivateFly.com, St Albans, Herts, 09/09/2010 16:16
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Neil Simmonds - The Ryanair thing wasn't serious, O'Leary spouts rubbish for the free publicity the press give him.
SqUiz - The NY crash was geese getting stuck in the engine, slightly different to 2 planes colliding at 4,000 feet, I challenge any pilot to ditch into a river when their plane has disintegrated in a fireball.
- Bob, Cheam, 09/09/2010 15:29
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Turkish Airlines. Um. Maybe the flight crew could not see out their windows because of the fog of cigarette smoke. My recent experiences with them have been that, in spite of nominally being no smoking, the flight and cabin crew use the flight deck as a smoking retreat. Not nice for business class passenger near the flight deck. Even smokers were offended because they could not smoke.
Not an airline I now favour. Even if the AAIB report was somewhat ambivalent, suggesting it was the Citation at fault. I wonder.
- Tom, Bedfordshire, UK, 09/09/2010 12:49
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For this news to have been with held for over one & a half months, is very worrying!
I live directly below the world's busiest air space, next to the Thames, the west bound flight path to Heathrow.
It has taken something like this to create new rules, that ALL planes flying over London, MUST from now on have the TCAS ll fitted, to avoid any future collisions!
- A Jones, Brentford, 09/09/2010 11:45
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Yet the management of Ryan Air want to remove the co-pilot from their flights! At a time when the skies are becoming busier than ever it just cannot be safe to allow a passenger flight to take off with no back-up in the event of an emergency.
- Neil Simmonds, London N5, 09/09/2010 11:33
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What has Boris done? NOTHING!! At a packed meeting in Ilford Jan18th London Mayor Boris Johnson backed calls for a public review of the controversial new London City Airport flight path introduced last year. The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) will review the flight path later this year but local residents feared it would be carried out in private. MPs and local authorities have been inundated with complaints from residents since the introduction of the new flight path. The CAA has said the take-off flight path is needed to cater for the increased number of jets using the airport.
- Darren, Newham, 09/09/2010 11:28
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Heathrow aircraft turn towards Heathrow over the Isle of Dogs at 4000ft plus and City airport aircraft generally turn north soon after takeoff. It's rare that aircraft would be on a collision course but even then their TCAS would give them deconfliction information. That does assume both have it fitted and aircrew actually taking notice of the alert.
- Paul, IoD, 09/09/2010 11:16
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We're all going to DIE ! Or perhaps not. We do after all have a socking great river to ditch in, and we were bombed to buggery 70 years ago with the majority surviving. When a plane crashed in NY recently the pilot ditched in the Hudson and everyone survived - I believe they even recovered the plane. Stuff happens. For the most part people are diligent and capable and doing their stuff well.
- SqUiz, IslIngton, 09/09/2010 11:09
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Heathrow bound jets overfly London City Airport on a daily basis. You will see a London City Airport jet take off and at the same time Heathrow jet wil fly over London City at higher altitude. Both sets of aircraft are loud enough to be heard from the ground. Our airspace is very tight.
With expansion at London City Airport ands flight running every 90 seconds and 400,000 Heathrow jets per year from Heathrow, it is only a matter of time we have a major catastrophe.
The Heathrow jets follow River Thames as part of their landing approach. Consequences would be severe, If an aircraft did crash into a dense populated area like London or tall buildings like Canary Wharf.
Although most sensible pilots would ditch into the River Thames to avoid loss of lives and populated area, but if they hit the London Thames Barriers, the consequences would mean that London would be flooded. As London's flood barrier operates some 75 times per year.
- W.L., London, 09/09/2010 10:15
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It's only a matter of time until we have a serious air incident in London, we have 4 airports sitting on top of each other which between them are coping with the largest volume of air traffic in the world.
- Bob, Cheam, 09/09/2010 09:31
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