Bookmark and Share
wpfb9b4c8d.png

Passenger plane avoided collision risk with RAF jets    8/2/12

A Loganair passenger plane avoided a potential crash situation after he unwittingly flew into the middle of a major military exercise over Stornoway last summer.

But RAF fighter jets continued to simulate an attack on Stornoway airport while the civilian aircraft was coming in to land. A total of 14 fast military aircraft were close to the Loganair plane during the “high energy manoeuvres” on 12 July last year.

A report published on Wednesday highlighted the “needless incident” was caused by a series of communication breakdowns compounded by garbled radio messages between the control tower at Stornoway and the military planes.

The crew of the twin-engined turboprop Loganair plane was not informed the bombing exercise was taking place and a near collision situation was averted after its pilot spotted the Tornados in the sky around 1.45pm.

The Airprox board - which probes close quarter near misses - slammed the RAF pilots for failing to abort the attack. They were previously informed there would be no other aircraft in the vicinity during the exercise.

But four Tornados carried on targetting the airfield despite the danger to the passengers on board the civilian aircraft .

The Loganair pilot commented that “those Tornados just got a wee bit too close for us.”

Stornoway airport has no radar and the Loganair airliner was making a visual approach at 130 knots at the time during the scheduled flight.

The airprox report says the pilot “saw two grey Tornado aircraft straight ahead and coming towards them.

“A few seconds later they had a Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) climb command quickly followed by a monitor vertical speed command.

“The Tornado was then seen to pull up and away from them aggressively but they informed air traffic control (ATC) they were going around due to the TCAS commands.

“They climbed to 2000ft and …then saw two black Hawk aircraft underneath them also manouvering aggressively so they advised ATC of the other aircraft. ATC was not aware that they were there.

“ATC advised them to continue downwind at 2000ft until advised, which they complied with.

“The military aircraft knew they had gone around due to TCAS command, but still continued to attack their target. “One Tornado acknowledged the fact that they had to go around.

“On departure they spoke to Scottish ATC and were informed that there were in fact a total of 14 military ac close to them at the time of the incident.

“He assessed the risk of collision as being high and reported the incident by radio to Stornoway Approach Controller.”

The Board found it “disappointing that there were apparently no records of the agreement for the attack by Stornoway ATC, or any other telephone calls between them and the exercise planners deployed to Lossiemouth.”

They agreed the Loganair pilot had played no part in the cause of this incident; he had acted correctly and exactly as specialist members expected.”

The board said the Stornoway controller had been faced with an “unenviable situation, exacerbated by his not being in possession of timely, full or accurate information about the Tornados attack or their full intentions.”

The board was unanimous that, as soon as the lead Tornado crew became aware of the passenger plane “they should have realised that there was a potential confliction and aborted the attack for both pairs of aircraft. They should have then remained well clear and re-evaluated the situation.”