Airprox

[IBMN]

CHARLES PLANE IN NEAR-MISS DRAMA - The Sun/PA

A plane carrying the Prince of Wales was involved in a near miss with a passenger jet as he flew to Spain for a memorial service for the Madrid train bomb victims.

The Prince was not aware of the incident as he travelled to the continent on March 24, but it is believed both pilots filed reports about the event.

The Sun reported he was on HS146 of the Queen's Flight with one of his private secretaries and a military equerry and had taken off from RAF Northolt in west London.

The other plane involved was an Airbus A321 which can carry up to 186 passengers and it came within a few hundred metres of Charles' plane, it was claimed, as both jets flew near Newbury, Berks. at 11,500ft.

A spokesman for Clarence House said: "All we are saying is that passengers were informed of the incident afterwards but they weren't actually aware of it while the flight was taking place." The Civil Aviation Authority had brief details of the incident on its website.

The statement said: "An Aircraft Proximity (Airprox) report has been filed with the Civil Aviation Authority involving a military aircraft and an A321. The incident took place near Newbury on Wednesday March 24 at 0830 hours.

"The A321 was en-route to Heathrow and receiving an air traffic control service from the London Terminal Control Centre. The incident took place at approximately 11,500 feet.

"These details are subject to assessment by the independent UK Airprox Board." It added that during the first six months of 2003 there were 32 Airprox incidents involving civil air transport and 87% of these were assessed as having no risk of collision.

The UK Airprox Board will decide the seriousness or not of the incident and report later in the year.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "We can confirm that there was a near-miss incident but not which aircraft were involved." end

[aviate1138]

Oh dear! Whilst all close(ish) encounters need to be reported it is always the vertical separation figure that gets the Press going, 200 feet vertical sounds like a scaremongering, big headline figure. One and a half miles horizontal doesn't do it for most people.
I wish we could have fuzzy logic truth ink so that after a few minutes the ink becomes transparent then [yawn] we don't have to read such drivel. Real news must be in short supply and I guess it is the silly summer season.

Aviate 1138

[Snigs]

BBC radio 4 reported it this morning.

They quoted that NATS said the a/c were no less than 3 miles apart and 900ft vertical seperation, but when have the Sun ever reported facts!? :hmm:

[Half a Mexican]

The 1st rule of tabloid journalism has always been “never let the facts get in the way of a good story”.
The front page of today’s Sun is “Prince Seconds From Death”

You can read the story for yourself: http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2004322653,00.html

Is it me or have The Sun been giving aviation a particularly hard time recently? :hmm:

[VectorLine]

If the incident took place when the aircaft were receiving an ATS from Terminal Control and the minimum horizontal separation was 3 miles, then there is no airprox.

TC are authorised to provide 3 miles or 1000'. I take it Charles' plane was on a LACC frequency?

Also 900' separation is within the tolerances of Mode C variation. One aircraft can be maintaining FL120 and displaying FL118 and another maintaining FL110, displaying FL112 - that gives only 600' separation (on radar) and no airprox.

And another thing - The Sun said it was so serious that both pilots filed a report! is that both pilots on the 146 or the A321? Media always like to assume one pilot per aircraft don't they?

I expect that it was actually pilots of both aircraft and 2 ATCOs who ended up reporting. That must make it deadly serious!

[Seloco]

There seems little doubt that the Sun "report" has exaggerated this situation, but it is a fact that the captains of both aircraft involved filed airmiss reports so they must have considered that there was something wrong.

Aren't Royal flights wrapped in some sort of "purple" airspace that is meant to enhance, rather than degrade normal separation rules?

[Pollyana]

Have to say, The Sun's "graphic simulation" is a hilarious picture! How do they get away with marketing themselves as a newspaper!!:rolleyes:

[BEXIL160]

"Purple Airspace" is long gone. The LTMA is Class A, whether there's a "Royal" in it or not.

I suspect that this is a potential Level Bust by one or other of the parties involved. Level Busts are very much in the spotlight and everyone (Pilots and Controllers) are encouraged to report them, in order that 1) the statistical data is more accurate and 2) the causes can be evaluated and communicated to the entire aviation community in the interests of Flight Safety.

I use the word "potential" as 3nm and 900ft are within the tollerances used by LTCC, as explained by vectorline. Perhaps a high rate of closure set off someones TCAS?

Rgds BEX

[earnest]

There seems little doubt that the Sun "report" has exaggerated this situation . . .
I don't think they've exaggerated it enough. The A321 can carry 220 passengers. Come on Currant Bun, sharpen up!

[amanoffewwords]

I don't buy The Sun - there's enough drivel on this forum, with the occasional informative and adult response such as the one by BEXIL160.

[Final 3 Greens]

What a great graphic in the Sun.

It couldn't have been a loco 321 with the gear down at FL115!

[Gentle Climb]

'An air traffic control insider said last night: �Both planes were lucky not to have collided. It was very hairy, to say the least.�'


The insider who regularly sweeps the corridors at Swanwick when he gets a break from emptying the bins said 'I wasn't really sure what was going on. There are screens everywhere and they all look the same. I 've got a playstation at home with a game called asteroids which has got lights flashing all over the place. The lights at Swanwick were REALLY lighting up and when my playstation does that, GAME OVER appears, so I knew that it must be really serious. By the way, can I have my payment in cash please?




The SUN...........pile of :mad:

[Kalium Chloride]

Daft. Been on the CAA website since 25 March - four months ago.

[Pollyana]

Good to see The Sun is up to date and on the ball as ever!:hmm:

[INLAK]

It was an Aer LIngus A321 inbound to Heathrow from Cork that was involved. Similar sensationilist headlines on the tabloids this side of the Irish Sea.

[hobie]

all the constant bitching about Tabloids and Journalists really demands its own Forum ...... do we really have to read and re-read the same old words every time someone quotes from a Newspaper .......

come to think of it, why on earth do people start threads based on Newspaper stories? ..... if a subject/story doesn't come from a reliable Aviation source, why waste the valuable resources of pprune, going through Newspaper reports that no one seems to want to read or hear about, let alone believe ???

[Wedge]

Picked up The Currant Bun on the train today, saw their 'graphical representation' of this incident and burst out laughing.

Straight out of VIZ magazine!!!

And as for "“Both planes were lucky not to have collided. It was very hairy, to say the least.”

Both planes as opposed to one plane colliding, I assume?


:E

[Not Long Now]

This must, and I know it has a lot of tough competition, go down as one of the least factually accurate stories yet. Well done The Sun, keep up the dreaming.

[frimm]

I was in a near miss this morning.

As I reached out of bed at stupid o'clock in the morning to silence the alarm, I almost knocked a glass of water over :ooh:

[Jerricho]

Hobie you make an excellent point. I've finally given up getting annoyed at the journalistic garbage found in the media regarding the aviation industry. The :mad: that write the stories aren't interested in the truth, just their version.

Edited cause I guess I did use a rude word. Sorry.

[Wedge]

The b******* the write the stories aren't interested in the truth, just their version.

Almost right - what you mean is they aren't interested in the truth, just selling papers through hysterical innaccurate reporting.

It is important in my view to report what the press are reporting, especially if the reporting is deeply innaccurate - as the purpose of this forum is to discuss issues that may affect the jobs or lives of professional pilots. This kind of reporting affects they way the industry is perceived by the public, so necessarily affects the job.

[cormacshaw]

The Irish Times reported this incident in rather more sober fashion this morning - small sidebar article on page 8 with non-sensational headline.

An Aer Lingus spokesperson is quoted thus: "[The Aer Lingus plane] was under the control of London Air traffic Control (ATC) and was given a course by it. It was subsequently asked to change course. At all time they were operating according to the instruction of London ATC".

Which sounds very much like the controller issued a heading, thought 'Hmm, that's not going to work' and issued a new one.

Its perhaps not surprising that this made the papers given the Prince's invovlement (certianly not his biggest aviation incident!), good to see that one paper at least was capable of not embelishing the facts.

Speaking of inaccuracies in the media, watching the golf as I type this and Peter Allis just mis-identified a VC-10 as "the biggest transport plane in the world, Russian-built". Honestly! :p (They'd been told there would be an Antonov about) Still, nice unexpected highlight to hear the roar, stopped Tiger dead in his tracks for minute

[2 six 4]

come to think of it, why on earth do people start threads based on Newspaper stories? ..... if a subject/story doesn't come from a reliable Aviation source, why waste the valuable resources of pprune, going through Newspaper reports that no one seems to want to read or hear about, let alone believe ???

Probably because the newspapers alerted us to a story which nobody else on PPrune had seen. How the papers report the story is up to them.

What is more important is that a professional ATCO, or crew or both reported a situation where they felt the safety of their aircraft was compromised and a possible collision risk had occurred. (From lost grey cells I think that is the definition of an Airprox. )

Interesting to see comment here that “the minimum horizontal separation was 3 miles, then there is no airprox.” Yes there was. It was filed with the CAA.

Also interesting to see that the NATS press neddy reports that
The National Air Traffic Services (Nats), which provides air traffic control for the UK, said in a statement that the safety of both aircraft was not "compromised" during the incident.

So why did someone file an airprox ?

Perhaps a more realistic approach is from the CAA who say "These details are subject to assessment by the independent UK Airprox Board. The board will decide on the seriousness of the incident and report later in the year. "

In the meantime thanks to the various news organisations who brought this to our attention. :ok: