Who is to Blame ? ? ?
Seems to me - I'm just a VFR Cherokee driver - that B is at fault. He knows the "A" hold is active with IFR traffic at 4500 and has IFR traffic he needs to get to 5500 without conflict. Thus he either gives radar vectors, which he can see will enable his traffic to be above 5000 clear of the hold before joining or he asks if it can be above 5000 by "C" (between B and A.) and takes action as appropriate. Handing over traffic already in conflict to "A" must have scared the living daylights out of the poor bugger !!!
However ..... if this HAD all turned to r*t sh*t then everybody who could prospectively have stopped it from so doing (I assume that doesn't include the two aeroplanes who are presumed to be on descrete frequencies A and B) has a part to play and will have all their actions and posible monitoring actions scrutinized at the subsequent court of enquiry. Not necessary to share the blame more thinly about - but for the benefit of lessons learned.
Last edited by Dave Gittins; 25th Aug 2005 at 13:18.