Name me a piece of equipment that
does work perfectly. And how many reports constitutes "too many"?
Put simply, having TCAS is more useful than not having it. ICAO needs to ensure that all pilots know to follow TCAS when its instructions are contradicted by ATC, and all ATCOs need to provide turns rather than climb/descent for avoiding action.
TCAS did not cause the Lake Constance accident. One factor was the Russian crew failing to follow it.
Incidentally, and given 20/20 hindsight, if the controller wanted to spend some time on the other screen, why would he not give the Tu154 1000' descent immediately he got on his screen - then he knew there could be no conflict. Instead, he had only two aircraft to play with, and had them at the same level...
