AVIANCA B787 Intercepted by Venezuelan Sukhois

[Jetset 88]

It appears that an Avianca Dreamliner from Madrid to Bogota was intercepted by 2 Venezuelan Su 30s today. The B787 is alleged to have suffered failures of its transponder height and callsign info being transmitted. TCAS alerts were experienced apparently. Colombia has now ceased all flights to Venezuela as a result of this 'diplomatic incident'

[NSEU]

Colombia has now ceased all flights to Venezuela as a result of this 'diplomatic incident'

Nutty. I'm sure Colombia would do the same thing if an unidentified (or possibly hijacked) aircraft entered their airspace.

[peekay4]

Two sides of the story.

Venezuelan reports say the Avianca 787 had an ADS-B malfunction over Venezuelan airspace and as a result Venezuela scrambled two SU-30s to intercept the aircraft.

Colombian reports say there was no transponder malfunction and the 787 was in normal contact with Venezuelan ATC. Allegedly Venezuelan fighter jets already in flight on a routine mission decided to intercept the 787 but did not follow proper procedures and caused a TCAS RA. The intercept continued for four minutes, and ended shortly before the 787 entered Colombian airspace.

[Mark in CA]

What are the chances an aircraft flying from Madrid, Spain to Bogota, Columbia would lose ADS-B just as it flies over Venezuela? Or am I just too cynical?

[Coochycool]

I'd be more interested to know whether the 787 changed attitude as per normal TCAS procedure.

And whether a visual had already been made, thereby revealing the reason for it.

Is it possible they may have manouvered with presumably non-TCAS fitted aircraft either side of them?

Interesting piece of Swiss cheese alignment

[vapilot2004]

What are the chances an aircraft flying from Madrid, Spain to Bogota, Columbia would lose ADS-B just as it flies over Venezuela? Or am I just too cynical?

Bingo bango bongo.

[vapilot2004]

Colombia's Avianca airline AVT_p.CN will restart flights to Venezuela after one of its aircraft was approached by at least one Venezuelan warplane on Friday, creating a diplomatic incident and prompting the airline to cancel flights to and from the socialist country.

Avianca said it would resume flights on Sunday, after cancelling transport to Venezuela when a passenger jet flying from Madrid to Bogota was briefly approached by Venezuelan military aircraft on Friday evening, resulting in diplomatic conversations and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro ordering an investigation.

"After clarifications between the governments of Colombia and Venezuela about the incident registered last night in Venezuelan skies with an Avianca plane, the Colombian civil aviation authority has authorized the restart of operations to and from Venezuela," Avianca said in a statement on Saturday evening.

Flight data also showed the Avianca Boeing Dreamliner took a sharp turn when flying over west Venezuela around 2000 local time (2000 EST/0000 GMT) on Friday, in line with a statement about the incident released by the Colombian defense ministry.

Both nations' defense and foreign ministers discussed the plane incident, the statement said. It said Maduro "personally ordered the investigation into the case."

"The ministers have spoken and cleared it all up, everything is normal," Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said during a visit to cacao growers on Saturday afternoon. "There's no need to worry."

Colombia airline restarts Venezuela flights after warplane incident - Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-colombia-idUSKCN12M0RH?il=0)

TCAS maneuver sounds more and more likely.

[ATC Watcher]

Avianca Boeing Dreamliner took a sharp turn when flying over west Venezuela
TCAS maneuver sounds more and more likely.

:ugh:not quite.

Nav/FMS error or as indicated on first post a loss of SSR data more likely.
Anyway, any State can intercept any aircrfat flying over his territory for whatever reason. Bruised feathers because of the 2 countries relations , but from a pure Civil aviation point of view , a non issue., unless there was a risk of collision of course.

[peekay4]

FWIW, I believe this was the flight (AV11). Multiple open sources including FlightAware and FR24 show continuous ADS-B coverage over Venezuela with no breaks in altitude or callsign data, in contradiction to early reports from Venezuela.

http://i.imgur.com/cMrv2T9.png

[glad rag]

"SU30" & "TCAS" Hmmm.....

[vapilot2004]

Perhaps a visual see and avoid maneuver then?

[peekay4]

TCAS only requires the "other" aircraft to have a functioning transponder (of any type).

If the intercepting aircraft had only Mode A, then the 787's TCAS II will issue TAs (Traffic Advisories) as required

If the intercepting aircraft had a Mode C or Mode S transponder, then the 787's TCAS II will generate TAs and RAs (Resolution Advisories)

Only "coordinated RAs" require both aircraft to have TCAS IIs.

[ATC Watcher]

Perhaps a visual see and avoid maneuver then? .
Assuming the "sudden turn" is what we see on the picture above, this is first 30 degrees for 25 NM.then another for 30 NM . Hardly collision avoidance turns. if a/c was not in contact with ATC or gave unsatisfactory answers , good reason to have a look and intercept I would say.
For those using FR24 more intensely , is the blue dotted line the original flight plan route , based on the actual PLN or just random ?

TCAS : what peekay4 says is absolutely correct technically , except that international Interception procedures require the first interceptor ( the one that comes close to the target ) to switch off his transponder just to avoid TCAS RAs from the aircraft intercepted, vertical manoeuvres that could be wrongly interpreted by the interceptors.

[vapilot2004]

international Interception procedures require the first interceptor ( the one that comes close to the target ) to switch off his transponder just to avoid TCAS RAs from the aircraft intercepted, vertical manoeuvres that could be wrongly interpreted by the interceptors.

That is true. Thanks ATC W. Although not every air force plays by the rules. (Chinese, Russians, and a few others come to mind)

[peekay4]

TCAS : what peekay4 says is absolutely correct technically , except that international Interception procedures require the first interceptor ( the one that comes close to the target ) to switch off his transponder just to avoid TCAS RAs from the aircraft intercepted

Hence:

Allegedly Venezuelan fighter jets already in flight on a routine mission decided to intercept the 787 but did not follow proper procedures and caused a TCAS RA.
From the data no vertical escape maneuver was performed, although that might only indicate that the crew was aware that they were being intercepted at that point.

[recceguy]

Interception procedures require the first interceptor ( the one that comes close to the target ) to switch off his transponder
Never heard of that when I was doing intercepts on my own fighter.
Same answer as towards those asking why fighters are not equipped with TCAS : intercepts are the daily staple of fighters, you rejoin other aircraft, big or small, VFR or clouds/night up to a very close range, and quite often the ground-based radar does need you return (which he can have on his primary radar, however)
For a liner, a TCAS event is a big thing - for a fighter, a sort of non-event. A successful interception in itself is more important.
By the way, Venezuelans are Venezuelans, when Colombians are in the hands of the Americans (their president got the the Nobel peace prize, which is a confirmation of that

[peekay4]

National procedures will differ. However, this is the recommendation from ICAO 9433, "Manual concerning Interception of Civil Aircraft" (basically, turn off Mode C/S to avoid RA):

If the intercepted aircraft is so equipped, the ACAS may perceive the interceptor
as a collision threat and thus provide a resolution advisory for avoidance.

Therefore, care must be taken that such an avoidance manoeuvre(s), if undertaken
before the pilot-in-command of the intercepted aircraft is aware of the interception,
is not misinterpreted as an indication of unfriendly intentions.

This situation can be avoided if the interceptor suppresses the transmission
of pressure-altitude information in its SSR transponder replies within a range
of at least 20 NM (approximately 30 seconds) of the aircraft being intercepted.

This prevents the ACAS in the intercepted aircraft from using resolution advisories
in respect of the interceptor, while the ACAS traffic advisory information will remain
available.

[recceguy]

National procedures will differ. However, this is the recommendation from ICAO 9433
Here we are : a "recommendation"
In a fighter cockpit or an Air Defence OPS room, who cares about an OACI "recommendation" ?
within a range of at least 20 NM
Seriously ?

[peekay4]

Yes, seriously. Why make the job more difficult?

If an intercept causes TCAS RAs, then the interceptor must deal with the resulting the escape maneuvers.

A military intercept a few years ago caused the target (a civilian ATR72 full of passengers) to perform numerous successive TCAS RA escape procedures for nearly 20 minutes!!

The ATR72 crew thought they were in imminent collision and the passengers must have been out of their minds!

Not only this encounter endangered flight safety, but surely it would have been better for the interceptor to simply have turned off his Mode C per procedure, and avoided all the extra work of chasing the plane for 20 minutes.

And I'm sure his commanders weren't too pleased to deal with the ensuing bad press and media circus!

[ATC Watcher]

recceguy :
Never heard of that when I was doing intercepts on my own fighter.
Shows your age :E
In a fighter cockpit or an Air Defence OPS room, who cares about an OACI "recommendation" ?

Well ICAO is all about recommendations ( the "R" in SARPs) and yes, even in France ( the country where I assume you were "doing intercepts" ) the procedure is applied and they normally do take ICAO recommendations very seriously.

They also had they own incident, similar to peekay4 example, with a Dutch B737 over Cambrai lost between 2 frequencies a month after 9/11 where both a/c dived around 20.000 ft at 4000 ft/min in the end, as the squawking Mirage kept right on with it keeping the 737 RA alive. The 737 switching finally to 121,5 saved the day in the end.
But lessons were learnt, and measures designed to prevent recurrence. .

[vapilot2004]

A military intercept a few years ago caused the target (a civilian ATR72 full of passengers) to perform numerous successive TCAS RA escape procedures for nearly 20 minutes!!


Interesting. Happen to have a country of occurrence? Just curious.

[recceguy]

Shows your age
Yes, I know and agree somewhat.
By the way, the intercept transponder we had in those days (MASA, wasn't it ?) used to be designed to show on everybody screen, that this particular aircraft was on an Air Defence mission of primary importance - in other words, it was making the sky clear in front of you (what a feeling believe me, when climbing full burner, to be at FL 360 2' 20 sec after brakes release, knowing that nobody would be in your way except a possible bogey at the end ..)
So what would be the interest of switching off such a valuable signal ?
but I acknowledge people more proficient than me found the solution thereafter.

[peekay4]

Interesting. Happen to have a country of occurrence? Just curious.

Brazil. I found the article below on avherald. It was an ATR-42 not 72:

Incident: TRIP AT42 at Tabatinga on Aug 7th 2011, TCAS RA and evasive maneouvers due to military intercept (http://avherald.com/h?article=4414b03b)

[DA50driver]

What the Nobel Peace price have to do with the US?

It is given out in Oslo, Norway. I am from there, the members are mostly anti US, pro-socialists.

[recceguy]

Brazil
Who cares what they can do in this country, regarding Air Defence ? They have no enemy, and virtually no fighters - like New Zealand, not a representative country when dealing with military subjects.

DA50, you should investigate a little bit more the history of the Nobel Price, how it's decided, by which people, for which reasons...
The fact that it has been given to one president simply because he was black, after a year of doing nothing, simply because of his supposed potential, speaks volume. Now regarding Venezuela and Colombia, you should also investigate more...

Also civilian transponders have one mode, when military ones have 4 or even 5... so you don't switch them off like that - and when conducting an intercept, I'm sorry, but the supposed "Air Safety" of the intercepted one is not the main factor. Pretty obvious, not ? An ICAO "recommendation" with all the interference of lawyers we know, will never be considered for long by the generals in charge of Air Defence of any country.

Anyway, airlines pilots are not the ones in charge of designing the interception profiles or procedures, neither is civilian ATC. They are just here to obey and comply with the orders coming from the interceptors, otherwise they will get shot down, as it happened in more than one occasion in history. So if they enjoy playing with their TCAS or following it stupidly and blindly as they are usually instructed to do in their simulators, too bad for them.
There is no right or wrong in the debate, no idea of being legal or not, or gray area - just remember the ones in the back with 30 mm guns and missiles are right, final.
After landing you can fill as much paperwork as you want, it will go to the bin directly - it's not a lawyer office.

And if you are not convinced, just try to cross some areas in the world where you have nothing to do.

And even better, rather than talking between yourselves, try to discuss with some of your colleagues who have been doing the great job before, there are still a few of them remaining in the airlines cockpits.

[peekay4]

I rest my case. :hmm:

[vapilot2004]

Brazil. I found the article below on avherald. It was an ATR-42 not 72:

Incident: TRIP AT42 at Tabatinga on Aug 7th 2011, TCAS RA and evasive maneouvers due to military intercept (http://avherald.com/h?article=4414b03b)

That's not surprising and was the reason for my wondering where. Cheers Peekay4 :ok:

After about 17 minutes of evasive maneouvers, during which the aircraft climbed and descended between about 4500 and 12500 feet, numerous attempts to reach the other aircraft on radio frequency 121.5 MHz without any reply, it finally became clear the conflicting aircraft was a military aircraft intercepting them, after which the crew followed the other aircraft flying to their left wing tip and were guided towards Tabatinga, then the military pilot advised on 121.5 Mhz to proceed to land at Tabatinga.

Not a proud day for the Forca Aerea Brasileira, but then this is just one knucklehead move out of many that came before.