Obviously from the reactions of informed ATCOs, the portrayal of the events leading up to the collision were uninformed nonsense. On the other hand, under completely different circumstances a similar near-miss incident did occur at LHR in 1997 (was this the incident they referred to at the end of the programme about the court case?)
Good point about the Bilbao flight being on a BPK departure! I suppose the fact that they got that wrong is a bit irrelevant though, in real life it would not really matter what the destination of the a/c was.
They did get some technical things right, even I know that the TWR freq at LHR is 118.7 (although I'm not an anorak!).
So a couple of questions for you ATCers - If LHR had to be closed, for the reason in the programme (no fire cover due to airport fire services attending the accident) or any other - with huge stacks of holding traffic, do the contingency plans include diversions to military airfields (eg Brize Norton/Lyneham) - and if so when do these come into effect? Would it ever conceivably be necessary?
Re: the TCAS. In real life it should have prevented the collision - but one question. I was once in the jumpseat on an LHR 9R departure, and shortly after rotation the TCAS came on "Traffic....Traffic.....". The pilots were not concerned so I assumed that it is normal to get a TCAS warning when taking off from a busy airport with so much other traffic about. But does this not mean that in the event of a real loss of seperation it would take longer for the pilots to react to the incident?
As a drama it was entertaining though, I especially liked the bit with Gary Lineker and Alan Hansen!