F-16's tryed to intercept Delta 767 in Belgian airspace.

[maarten4]

BRUSSEL - Rond elf uur woensdagochtend (31 oktober) zijn in de omgeving van Brussel twee F-16’s door de geluidsmuur gegaan. Dat had twee luide knallen tot gevolg. De straaljagers moesten een Amerikaans verkeersvliegtuig onderscheppen. Dit toestel verloor onderweg van Stuttgart naar Atlanta boven België het contact met de luchtverkeersleiding.

Het vliegtuig, een Boeing 767 van Delta Air Lines, antwoordde niet op oproepen om zich kenbaar te maken. De Belgische Defensie heeft volgens de procedures twee F-16’s die op dat moment een vlucht uitvoerden naar dit vliegtuig gestuurd.

"Het toestel hebben we niet meer kunnen onderscheppen in het Belgische luchtruim, maar in het Britse luchtruim heeft Londen contact gekregen en bleek het om een vals alarm te gaan", meldt majoor Peter Lepez aan VRT Nieuws.

Quick translation: Yesterday (31 october) two F-16's of the Belgian air force broke the sound barrier on there way to intercept a Delta 767 from Stuttgart to Atlanta who lost radio contact in Belgian air space.. They were not able to catch up. Later the Delta aircraft established contact with London upon entering British airspace, and it proved to be a false alarm.:ugh:

Second time this week... Couple of days ago Two Belgian F-16's intercepted a PIA 777 above Holland on it's way to England for the same reason. But they also re-established contact.:D

[FCS Explorer]

:} wow! those delta guys must be fast! i mean, if a fighter going sonic can't catch them.
still don't understand why it took them 17 hours for FRA-LAx two weeks ago.
maybe they needed the extra time to break the wheels of my suitcase!:bored:

next time i'll be flying lufthansa again. it sucks, but at least they pay what they break.

[M609]

Must be sad to have a country so small that a QRA pair on RS15 can't reach an airliner before it has left the FIR! ;) :E

[Check Airman]

The Delta jet was going at around .8-.84M. The fighters would be maybe twice that speed. If they deployed way behind, it'd take a while for them to catch up.

It's a sad state of affairs when you are intercepted for a radio failure...

[cjhants]

its a well known fact that f16s going to intercept a possible hijacked airliner will at first go in the completely opposite direction, thereby giving no chance of intercepting it;)

[Bushfiva]

Had Belgian police jump out at a stoplight many years ago when I was driving a German-registered vehicle, measure the tyre tread depth and then ask me for my international carnet. Once they got over the shock of me not being German, and once I'd checked that their chromed uniform numbers weren't covered with black tape, I asked what the game was. "We're tired of Germans using Belgium to slow down before the ferry".

Sums it up, really. The only way to get a Belgian F16 up high enough to do an intercept before the miscreant is in someone else's airspace is to invent a runway device that goes "boing".

[Rwy in Sight]

Well at least they managed to take off and at leat attempt to intercept and they did not abort on the way to the rwy or worst.


Rwy in Sight

[ChristiaanJ]

... twee F-16’s die op dat moment een vlucht uitvoerden ... translates to:
"... two F16s which were carrying out a flight at that moment...".

In other words, they were already airborne :O

[maarten4]

minor detail:}

[5Y744]

Radio Failure...

More like snoozing and being competely unaware of FIR's

[Dani]

...wouldn't be the first time that some Delta crews were lost in Brussels airspace... Maybe they wanted to land in FRA? ;)

Dani

[Avman]

:= Wrong airline Dani. That was NWA.

[Check Airman]

Wrong airline Dani. That was NWA.

LOL. Care to tell us more on that one?

[Rwy in Sight]

The incidente took place back in 1988 or 1989. It involved a DC-10, I think from Detroit or Chicago, and the crew asked and secured a landing clearance in BRU while the flight was scheduled to FRA. What was weird was that the screens showing the flight path (attitude location etc) were correctly showing the approach and landing to BRU instead of the progression to FRA for the pax but apparently the crew failed to be informed (now I come to think about pretty bad CRM).

I am not aware about how the initial mistake was made and why FD crew were not alerted.

Rwy in Sight

[5Y744]

Hello,

On August 10 at around 12:14Z, Delta Airlines flight 073 from Istanbul (IST) to New York (JFK) was intercepted by two Dutch F16 fighter jets over the Netherlands. According to sources, the DAL flight failed to contact Maastricht Eurocontrol UAC.

An MP3 sound file has become available of the interception. It can be downloaded here:

http://www.zap16.com/Intercept%20f16%20B767%20Delta.htm

You hear AJ33, which is one of the two F16s scrambled from Twenthe AFB in the Netherlands. AJ33 is talking to Dutch Fighter Control (c/s Bandbox) on UHF, the latter is not audible. The recording is time-compressed; the blanks have been removed from the recording. Later on in the recording you hear AJ33 talking to the DAL crew on VHF guard freq 121.5.




11th August 2005, 18:55

[Avman]

RWY in sight, your version is not quite correct either (the crew did not knowingly ask for and secure a landing clearance to Brussels). It's a long story which I've explained on more than one occasion here on PPRuNe and frankly can't be bothered to repeat yet again.

I found one of them from another thread on the ATC forum:

Just for the record, the Northwest into Brussels was essentially an ATC error. Enroute ATC had him on their strips (incorrectly) as going to EBBR and thus vectored him as such. Both EDDF and EBBR were landing on 25L that morning. When the crew failed to identify the LOC (having set up the FRA frequency) they asked appr for the frequency, which was given. Thinking it had changed and they had not received notification of this change, they set it up and landed on 25L - at EBBR! For sure a more alert crew should have picked up on lots of little clues. But remember, it was after a long eastbound overnight flight and the crew were being vectored by ATC from TOD onwards. More knowledgeable controllers, including those at EBBR, should have known that NWA didn't operate into EBBR and could have sought confirmation of destination.

[sierrapilot]

But remember, it was after a long eastbound overnight flight and the crew were being vectored by ATC from TOD onwards.
LOL!
In my book that doesn't fly as an excuse for landing in the wrong metropol in the wrong country! But then again, these yanks.. :E