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MAS A380 KUL-LHR in Near Mid-Air Collision with Kuwait Airways Jet Over Pakistan

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ETIHAD-EMIRATES NEAR-MISS: CONTROLLERS LEFT POSTS FOR BREAKFAST
By Aditya Anand, Mumbai Mirror | Apr 4, 2015, 01.05 AM IST
An internal probe into the March 29 near-miss between an Emirates flight and an Etihad jet in Mumbai airspace has found four air traffic controllers at fault and revealed that a critical surveillance system, which showed the two aircraft flying towards each other, was left unmanned.

A series of missteps by the controllers effectively stacked the two aircraft in such a manner that they were aligned on a collision course, the inquiry has revealed. Only one of the controllers has been taken off his roster. The other three remain on duty.
"The first ATC gave the Emirates flight a direct routing - allowing the flight a shortcut - as requested by the pilot. This officer then left for breakfast without changing the flight level and updating the system. The second controller who took over also went for breakfast. The third controller who took charge did not know about the direct routing allowed for Emirates, and permitted the Etihad flight to take the same shortcut, putting the two planes on a collision course," a senior officer in the ministry of civil aviation told Mumbai Mirror.

The fourth controller was meant to monitor the Automatic Dependent Surveillance (ADS) system, which parses data from the airplane's on-board navigation and global positioning systems data, assisting controllers in determining the aircraft's spatial and temporal location. This ATC left his station unattended, causing the error committed by his three colleagues to go unnoticed.
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Kuwaiti, Malaysian Airlines planes in near collision

By Courtney Trenwith

  • Monday, 6 April 2015 10:16 AM

A Kuwait Airways plane was involved in a near collision over Pakistan on Sunday, according to the Saudi Press Agency.

The Kuwaiti aircraft was travelling to Islamabad when it narrowly missed a Malaysian Airlines plane heading to London, officials from Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority reportedly said.

The incident occurred over the Zhob district of Baluchistan in southwestern Pakistan due to weak air traffic control radar signals, the authority said.

Kuwait Airways did not comment on the incident.

The near-miss follows a similar incident between Emirates and Etihad aircraft over the Indian Ocean on March 29.

Emirates flight EK-706 was flying to its base in Dubai from Seychelles, while Etihad flight EY-622 was enroute to Seychelles from Abu Dhabi.

The UAE airlines were operating to Seychelles using Mumbai and Muscat airspace due to the closure of Yemeni airspace in the wake of the ongoing conflict in the region.

Indian civil aviation authorities are investigating the incident.


Dear MH, please revise the routing IMMEDIATELY and avoid this blind spot over Pakistan.

 

Please, no more incident! Aren't we tired?

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Where then should MH route their flights to Europe - across the Pacfic & Atlantic?

 

If this was a regular occurrence we'd probably hear it often. And the fact that planes nowadays are equipped with TCAS means that early awareness of an impending collision is heightened (and before you say Ueberlingen disaster, note that it's not the fault of TCAS but that of the controller ordering the Baskhirian Airlines Tupolev to IGNORE TCAS in error).

Edited by Mohd Suhaimi Fariz

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Where is ICAO on this matter? Pakistani civil aviation authorities should be taken to task! If MH suffers another unfortunate crash again, they are really cursed!

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Seriously, aren't there any flight controller's software to avert such human error?

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MAS denies near-miss with Kuwait Airways aircraft over Pakistan

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia Airlines has denied that one of its flights to London experienced a near-miss with a Kuwait Airways aircraft over Pakistani airspace on Sunday. A spokesman for MAS said the airline has avoided Pakistan's airspace due to the increased risk to flight operation safety, following a Safety Information Bulletin (SIB) issued by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) this year.

_______________
MAS is right, MH2 and MH4 never crossed the Pakistan airspace on 5th April (and also the day before and after it). I checked at FR24.

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Dear MH, please revise the routing IMMEDIATELY and avoid this blind spot over Pakistan.

 

Please, no more incident! Aren't we tired?

 

Thanks for the thoughtful advise.

 

Just be informed that MH haven't been flying over Pakistani airspace for a few months already due to security concern. And no, this is not plucked from some press release or something but rather a first hand account from someone who regularly fly the route enroute to Europe and the Middle East.

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Thanks for the thoughtful advise.

 

Just be informed that MH haven't been flying over Pakistani airspace for a few months already due to security concern. And no, this is not plucked from some press release or something but rather a first hand account from someone who regularly fly the route enroute to Europe and the Middle East.

Thank you for the first account reply. It is great to know that MH can really divert its routing pronto based on current situation.
Some people really makes it sounded like it is so impossible to do (diverting flight routing to avoid dangerous airspace) and even sarcastically suggesting something totally irrelevant like the reply appended below.

 

Where then should MH route their flights to Europe - across the Pacfic & Atlantic?

 

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No matter how diligent one can be, human error cannot be totally eliminated.

Lets hope that airspace controlling system and technologies will further improve and lessen its dependent on human (ATC) input.

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Pakistani airspace closure is NOTAMed, so the routing is already flight-planned by the dispatchers. We are flying via south India / Arabian Sea / Iran / Turkey route nowadays. Just hope that Iranian airspace is not closed, otherwise it will be quite difficult.

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So I wonder who started this joke in the first place.

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Pakistani airspace closure is NOTAMed, so the routing is already flight-planned by the dispatchers. We are flying via south India / Arabian Sea / Iran / Turkey route nowadays. Just hope that Iranian airspace is not closed, otherwise it will be quite difficult.

 

With economic sanction and low oil price, I would think tolling aircrafts passing Iran's airspace seems like a lucrative business for that country's government.

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I would pay a bit extra if the flight route is slightly further from any danger hot spots. But the issue is will there be any airline willing to disclose the flight route publicly and then declare that the airline is flying a safer route without causing an international furore?

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