I have just been hearing about another incident at LL yesterday involving a Shuttle off BNN which went PLOC (prolonged loss off communication). It went for about 15 miles across the top of LL (fortunately pre co-ordinated) and down the south side without talking.
So why have the Russians been blamed so quickly for this mid-air? Yes they didn't respond as quickly as one would like but surely, a system which allows crossing traffic to get that close at the same level before taking action is at the root of the cause?
The first lesson I learned at the college was that in this game sod's law works double but because things rarely go wrong, we have come to expect that they won't. It seems to me that, driven by commercial pressure, we are no longer allowing for the possibility of system failure and there are circumstances within the London TMA which could allow such an accident to happen here.
Point 4
