Originally Posted by punkalouver
I find it amazing that a specialist on aircraft safety is telling us that if we end up in a similar scenerio as the one over Germany that night that we should ignore the RA and in fact go against it.
I find it amazing that you make this statement.
Would you mind showing us the post where someone said that, when confronted with the Ueberlingen scenario, one
should ignore the RA and go against it?
What I (and others) said was that the choice taken by the Bashkirian crew was (one of several) rational choices in the given situation. Namely assuming two intruders, one they can see, and one they cannot see, and being given ATC instructions
before receiving the RA.
Rational choice means it can be defended as being thought through: Looking at the individual pieces of information presented to them, evaluating them and making an informed decision on the course of action.
That the choice to follow ATC instead of TCAS was a rational choice does
not mean:
- that it was the
only choice or
- that it was the
only rational choice or
- that the crew actually decided rationally
[edit]
- it doesn't even mean that it was necessarily (in hindsight) the best choice
[/edit]
I second PBL's call to show us exactly why you think the choice made by the Tupolev crew was not rational.
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(And now for something completely different.)
Disclaimer: I do not have a degree in psychology or similar training, so I'm really asking this question out of curiosity.
As to the chances of avoiding traffic visually:
There is a phenomenon, well-known to Rally-drivers, that, if you're a proficient driver, you tend to steer towards the object that you look at. It seems that if you look at a tree, you're more likely to hit it than if you deliberately look beside it. Driving becomes completely skill-based, and without thinking you follow your eyes.
The effect can be observed even in a rally (or other racing) simulation on a computer.
I actually have no idea how much of this is applicable to aviation. Just a random thought.
Bernd