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The 2002 Überlingen Mid-Air Collision
What Happened
On July 1, 2002, a Bashkirian Airlines Tupolev TU-154 and a DHL Boeing 757 cargo jet collided over Überlingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. All 71 people on board of the two aircrafts were killed. Peter Neilsen was the key contributor to the crash due to the fact that he was overworking by handling two stations at the same time. And therefore, he failed to direct the two aircrafts to maintain the required distance from one another (Maslen & Hayes, 2020). The collision occurred as the Tupolev TU-154 was descending to land at Friedrichshafen Airport, and the DHL Boeing 757 was climbing out of Friedrichshafen Airport. The collision impact resulted in a large fire which completely destroyed both aircrafts.
The Findings
The findings hold that the accident occurred because Nielsen was the only person left to take charge of airspace control; the other person on the shift was resting. The collision was caused by a loss of communication between the air traffic controllers and the pilots. Similarly, the accident showed that the communication loss was due to a lack of understanding between the different agencies involved in air traffic control. The accident report found that the tragedy was caused by a series of individual mistakes made by both the pilots and air traffic controllers (Maslen & Hayes, 2020). Concerning the communication loss, the accident was partly blamed on the use of three different frequency bands by air traffic control (ATC) in Europe at the time. These multiple frequencies caused confusion among controllers as to who should be giving instructions to which aircraft.
Two years later, all European airspace was converted to using one single frequency band, enabling controllers to communicate more easily with one another. The Russian Federation outlined that it was impossible for the Russian pilot was already at 35500 feet when he was being instructed to fly higher (Maslen & Hayes, 2020). Concerning the DHL lane, the instructor was to quote 10 oclock but instead mentioned 8 oclock, thus giving the wrong position. Russia affirmed that the collision could have been avoided since the DHL team could hear the communication between the controller and the Russian crew. Conversely, the Swiss airspace control company noted that even though the false information was delivered regarding phraseology and position, the collision could have been avoided if the instructions had been adhered to immediately.
How TCAS Could Have Avoided Mid-Air Collision
First, TCAS could have provided both pilots with a traffic collision avoidance warning. Similarly, the pilots would have taken evasive action and avoided the collision. The fact that both planes were on autopilot mode was a major contributing factor to the mid-air collision. If either pilot had been manually flying their plane, they would have seen the other plane much sooner and been able to take evasive action. Second, TCAS was to provide each pilot with clear and concise instructions on how to avoid a collision. In addition, the pilots would have received warning signals on their cockpit screens, telling them when they were getting too close to other aircraft (Maslen & Hayes, 2020). Conversely, the TCAS had the capacity to avoid the collision by ensuring stable and reliable warning signals and improved clarity. They would have also made sure that pilots knew how to respond to TCAS warnings and developed better methods for verifying that an aircraft has received and is the TCAS instructions.
Reference
Maslen, S., & Hayes, J. (2020). Case based learning among practicing engineers: design, facilitation and lessons learned. Cognition, Technology & Work, 22(2), 307-319.
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