Originally Posted by
ATC Watcher
misd-agin , do not jump to conclusions and put words in the mouth of people you do not know . It is offensive.
I doubt any Controller in his right mind would do such a thing," my guess ( and it is only a guess ) is that someone beleived the 737 was a 390 .
Why it was maintaining 37 or passing 37 climbing to 390 , or whatever , is one of the key points the ATC tapes/CVR/FDR will reveal .
I would also not be surprised if more holes in the cheese pop up, like a guy alone on the position ( like in Ueberlingen) or a bad shift change, or a system outage ot some kind, or a system decorrolation, or a wong ACT/estimate passed/received , that sort of things.
And unless I know more of the facts, and one or the other scenario is confirmed, I will not put words on the mouth of anyone and certainly presume blame .
Even if ATC did fail, it could even be the system ( similar to the Honeywell Xponder going to SBY on its own.. ) and not necessarily people.
It looks like you might be spot on with the shift change theory.
http://www.airliners.net/discussions....main/3041736/
reply 3 reads:
According to an article in Veja magazine published this weekend and entitled "Did ATC fail?" this is what happened over BSB based on [disclaimer] unnamed sources:
The Legacy transponder failed for the first time before crossing BSB. The data block displayed to the controller was: "3?0 = 370", where the "?" indicates loss of info, "=" cruise, and the right "370" what was in the flight plan. A little later it was working again "370 = 370". Unfortunately, there was an ATC shift change at the same time the Legacy was crossing BSB. The controller being relieved informed his substitute about the transponder problem. However, by the time this new controller got to his or her station, the transponder wasn't working again and the data block read "3?0 = 360", since the flight plan called for this altitude after BSB. And apparently, he or she wasn't informed that the Legacy was flying at FL370 a few minutes before.
Moreover, after losing radio contact with the Legacy soo after, Cindacta 1 FAILED to warn Cindacta 4 about the possible conflict. All primary radar returns were good and no lateral separation was provided between the aircraft.