Don
Good post, I agree, compared to others …..
But I still have a bone or two to chew:
1. You state about ATC:
- ATC never seemed to catch it, perhaps the same issue?
- We can complain about ATC as they did not check the clearance read back by the crew.
- But the incident would not have happened if a tried and tested procedure was not abandoned and if ATC had done his job to correct a wrongly readback clearance
and about EK 703:
Who knows how much of the traffic information they heard
It so seems that our crew gets the benefit of the doubt of maybe having misunderstood a transmission. But do you give the same benefit to ATC?
Reading your statement it seems not.
Isn’t that a tad unfair towards the controller?
2. Let’s read the following transmissions:
- ATC: Emirates 703 expect lower after passing Seychelles 054, Airbus 332 climbing to FL370, passing time 1307, report sighting and passing
- EK 703: Emirates 703 roger.
EK acknowledges the traffic information with a “roger”, indicating to the controller that they have understood. There was no further clarification or other action. The traffic information however appears quite clear.
I can only think of two explanations:
Either they did not comprehend the traffic information, which would indicate a poor situational awareness, or they did not understand it and simply said “roger” to carry on, which would indicate a dangerous complacency (by the way, they never reported any sighting or passing).
Any uncertainty should have been clarified, any correct comprehension should have triggered a reconfirmation of the levels cleared.
You finally say:
No one is golden here
I agree, and I have never pretended that this would not happen to me or other Bruce’s!! But this should not prevent us to try to analyse the event objectively, for the sake of enhancing safety, even without a (most probably very, very late) final report.