Originally Posted by
NigelOnDraft
Degree of Risk C, ATC, pilots, visual sightings and TCAS all kept well apart...
Worthy of looking into into why. Newsworthy? Not sure...
It is not 'newsworthy' except for the over excitable tabloid reporting.
However, from a professional standpoint when a controller gives 'avoiding action' in Class C airspace the instruction should be treated in the same way as a TCAS RA - do not second guess, chat amongst yourselves on the flight deck, take a look out of the window to see if it's necessary - react at once and turn. From the controller point of view - ALWAYS expect your instruction to be ignored and watch carefully and reissue the instruction immediately it is apparent that it is being ignored. (I speak from experience in the same airspace). Unfortunately, the track smoothing algorithms can hide a turn on the controller display until 2 or 3 updates - that is a long time.
This has all the hallmarks of crews only half listening to their current controller and already settling into 'oceanic mode'.
Perhaps..... As there were two 'avoiding action' instructions close together I think the first PF didn't fully hear them picked up half the second heading and thought it was a repeat of the instruction to his aircraft and turned onto it. The second aircraft PF heard the heading for the first and was not sure it was not for them - then heard their callsign in the second instruction and took the heading heard first. This is always going to be a problem with crews where PNF talks and the PF acts. It is obvious that both the PNFs read back correctly yet watched PF turn to a different heading.
All the masterly pilots on here who never make any mistakes - should think about this one.