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Aviation History
2004
2004-09 - 0766.PDF
ULL LIST OF READER SERVICE ADVERTISER CONTACTS - P76 WWW.FLI6HTINTERNATI0NAL.COM Webmaster Sheena Buchanan •44 (20) 8652 4432 webmaster@flightintemational.com EDITORIAL + 44 (20) 8652 3842 Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey SH2 5AS, UK Fax +44 (20) 8652 3840 email flight.internationalfrbi.co.uk Editor Murdo Morrison +44 (20) 8652 4395 murdo.morrison@rbi.co.uk Editorial Assistant Andrew Costerton +44 (20) 8652 3835 andrew.costerton@rbi.co.uk News Editor Andrew Doyle +44 (20) 8652 3096 andrewMoyleMi.co.uk Commercial Aviation Editor Max Kingsley-Jones +44 (20) 8652 3825 max.kingsiey.jones0rbi.co.uk Defence Editor Craig Hoyle +44 (20) 8652 3834 craig.hoylembi.co.uk Operations/Safety Editor David Learmount +44 (20) 8652 3845 david.learmounWrbi.co.uk Business Editor Alexander Campbell +44 (20) 8652 3990 alexander.campbell@rbi.co.uk Business & General Aviation Editor Kate Sarsfield +44 (20) 8652 3885 kate.sarsfield@rbi.co.uk Senior Reporter Justin Wastage +44 (20) 8652 3S63justin.wastnage@rbi.co.uk Technical Reporter Rob Coppinger +44 (20) 8652 3843 rob.coppinger@rbi.co.uk Spaceflight Correspondent Tim Furniss +44 (1237) 477883 tim@spaceport.co.uk Senior Technical Artist Giuseppe Picarella +44 (20) 8652 8054 joe.picarella@rbi.co.uk Editorial Artist Tim Brown +44 (20) 8652 8043 tim.brown@rbi.co.uk EUROPE/MIDDLE EAST European Editor Christina Mackenzie +33 (1) 64 23 68 89 christina.mackenzie@rbi.co.uk Israel Correspondent Arie Egozi +972 (3) 9413132 Middle East Correspondent Gerald Butt AMERICAS Washington DC Office Fax +1 (703) 836 8344 Americas Editor Graham Warwick +1 (703) 836 3448 graham.warwick@rbi.co.uk East Coast Editor Stephen Trimble +1 (703) 836 3084 stephen.trimble@rbi.co.uk West Coast Editor Guy Norris +1 (949) 252 8971 Fax +1 (949) 252 8972 guy.norris@rbi.co.uk Brazil Correspondent Jackson Floras Jr +55 212439-6062 Fax +55 212349-6090 fubar@uol.com.br ASIA/PACIFIC Singapore Office Fax +65 6789 7575 Regional Managing Editor Nicholas lonides +65 6780 4311 nicholas.ionides@rbi.co.uk Deputy Asia Editor Brendan Sobie +65 67804309 brendan.sobie@rbi.co.uk Regional Reporter Leithen Francis +65 6780 4314 leithen.francis@rbi.co.uk Australia Civil Aviation Correspondent Emma Kelly +61 (8) 9454 4987 emmajkeily@bigpond.com Associate Editor (Defence) Peter La Franchi +61419 246 620 Fax +61 (2) 62312795 nulka@ozemail.com.au EDITORIAL PRODUCTION Group Production Editor Graeme Osborn +44 (20) 8652 3828 Group Art Editor James Mason +44 (20) 8652 4994 Chief Sub-Editor Chris Thornton +44 (20) 8652 4997 Deputy Production Editor Jackie Thompson +44 (20) 8652 3850 Sub Editor Simon Rees +44 (20) 8652 3848 Photographer Mark Wagner +44 (20) 8944 5225 SUBSCRIPTIONS +44 (1444) 445454 rbi.subscriptions@rbi.co.uk THE FLIGHT COLLECTION kim.hearn@rbi.co.uk © and Database Rights 2004 Reed Business Information Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of the publishers A-IP 1 Air Transport Intelligence (ATI), Flight International's sister J-\\ j onlineserviceatwww.rati.com, contains the full text of Flight ^•nma International and Airline Business since 1996. Full text of the magazines can also be found online with Lexis-Nexis, Dialogue, FT Profile, IAC and Reuters. Editor Kieran Daly +44 (20) 8652 3837 Reed Business Information COMMENT Embedded errors Europe has suffered two appalling air traffic accidents since 2001. Between them, their reports contain pointers to a safer future Europe's air traffic management (ATM) sys tems may have served aviation adequately for a long time, but an accident like the mid-air collision over southern Germany shows just how fragile the existing systems are. Adequate is a damning word, and one which encom passes many levels of competency depending on what the observers' standards are. Although the basic details of what happened were clear from the time that Germany's air accident investigator BFU released its prelimi nary factual report of the collision in 2002, the just-released final report analyses in detail why it happened. The 1 July collision over Ueberlingen, southern Germany between a DHL Boeing 757 freighter and a Bashkirian Airlines Tupolev Tu-154M was one of two semi nal events in recent European ATM history. The other was the 8 October 2001 runway collision involving an SAS Boeing MD-87 and a Cessna Citation CJ2 at Milan Linate airport, Italy. If any- Hindsight can provide wisdom for use in the future. The future is now body in European ATM felt they could take comfort in a long period of relative safety, and say of changes proposed for their system: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," these two events prove them wrong. Human nature - and the nature of govern ment-linked systems like ATM service provision - being what they are, perhaps these accidents had to happen to convince the indus try it has to improve. Just as the Linate accident investigation opened a complete can of worms, displaying an organisation that had no safety manage ment system at all, the Ueberlingen collision report forced Swiss ATM service provider Skyguide to recognise it may have had a safety system in place, but it was operating it piece meal and not as a closed-loop system. Despite lessons from Linate, runway incur sion accidents probably still constitute one of the risks against which the air traffic control system remains least well-defended, because a collision can be a matter of an aircraft travel ling just 20m (65ft) from where it should be to where it becomes a fatal obstacle, leaving little time for controllers or systems to detect the developing risk. No wonder this risk remains a high priority in the safety action plans for Eurocontrol, the US Federal Aviation Administration, and many other ATM oversight organisations worldwide. Meanwhile, Ueberlingen demonstrated that "the accident that couldn't happen" - because of all the safety-net systems that were theoreti cally in place - actually did happen because they either were not being used at all (short- term conflict alert - STCA - was down for main tenance) or were being operated differently in the two collision aircraft (airborne collision avoidance system) because of ambiguity in the laid-down standards for use and disparity in the operating instructions for pilots. At the Zurich area control centre (ACC) on 1 July 2002, the sole Skyguide controller at his workstation had no operating technological monitor - the STCA - and he had no human back-up either because his colleague had taken a break. In addition, he had two tasks using two separate displays: controlling the upper-airspace sector in which the accident took place, and the lower sector in which he was guiding an Airbus A320 toward its destina tion at Friedrichshafen. The BFU report remarks that his focus on the low-level traffic definitely contributed to his late appreciation of the developing upper-airspace conflict. Skyguide admits that its standards at the time should have ensured that the controller was not alone however uncongested the sky was that night, but its system was being disregarded. As soon as this became apparent early in the investigation, the ATM provider clarified its requirement for human back-up at all times, and since then has also ensured that a sepa rate controller handles low-level traffic for approaches and departures in the area. Hindsight can provide wisdom for use in the future. The future is now. The Ueberlingen and Linate reports have illustrated that apparently "adequate" systems - adequate in the sense that nothing had gone seriously wrong for a while - were far short of the safety standards air travellers have a right to expect. It has been evident to pilots since the invention of radio communication that standards and styles of air traffic control all over Europe have always var ied dramatically. It is obvious that the least competent have the most to do, but if Skyguide had internal imperfections, so have all the oth ers. The fundamental keys to Europe-wide improvement are full participation in Eurooontrol's centralised ATM incident report ing system and the operation - not just the possession of - an approved safety manage ment system. www.flightinternational.com FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 25-31 MAY 2004 3
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