jetairways flight 9w118 contact lost over Germany

[Chronus]

According to Indian news agencies contact was briefly lost in German airspace and flight intercepted by German fighters.

WATCH: German fighter jets intercept Jet Airways flight after it loses contact with ATC : India, News - India Today (http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/jet-airways-german-atc-fighter-jets-security-scare/1/886579.html)

The video footage with above link looks quite credible.

[renfrew]

Apparently filmed by a following BA flight.

[skadi]

More here:

http://avherald.com/h?article=4a51a0a5&opt=0

[OldLurker]

Very interesting video. A good sky for photography!

Could someone who knows about intercept procedures answer a couple of questions?

(1) The interceptor arrives beside the target but makes no manoevers to draw attention to himself. It's hard to tell the exact relative position but he seems to stay roughly abeam of the cockpit. Does he expect the target captain to look out sideways while in high-altitude cruise? Or it it left to passengers to tell CC to tell flight crew that there's a fighter alongside?

(2) The interceptor's wingman turns up two minutes later. Is this normal? I thought they normally fly together?

[DaveReidUK]

The Jet Airways crew were advised that an interception would take place, communication with ATC having already been re-established.

[luchtzak]

Jet Airways statement:

Contact between Jet Airways flight 9W 118, from Mumbai to London Heathrow, of February 16, 2017, and the local ATC, was briefly lost while flying over German airspace. Communication was safely restored within a few minutes. As a precaution, the German Air Force deployed its aircraft to ensure the safety of the flight and its guests. The flight with 330 guests and 15 crew subsequently landed at London without an incident.

Jet Airways has duly reported the matter to the concerned authorities including the DGCA. As part of the standard process, the flight crew of 9W 118 has been de-rostered pending investigation

[ATC Watcher]

I am wondering if the GAF will send the bill to Jet airways . I heard some States now do this as a matter of principle ( or at least claim they do ) in case loss of Comms or Navigation through restricted/prohibited airspace due to pilot error.

[Kerosene Kraut]

No, they won't.

[trim it out]

Very interesting video. A good sky for photography!

Could someone who knows about intercept procedures answer a couple of questions?

(1) The interceptor arrives beside the target but makes no manoevers to draw attention to himself. It's hard to tell the exact relative position but he seems to stay roughly abeam of the cockpit. Does he expect the target captain to look out sideways while in high-altitude cruise? Or it it left to passengers to tell CC to tell flight crew that there's a fighter alongside?

(2) The interceptor's wingman turns up two minutes later. Is this normal? I thought they normally fly together?
The number two was always there, just out of shot behind the intercepted aircraft. Not much good being side by side if the intercepted aircraft decides to bank into them both.

More details on TTPs available here (https://www.faasafety.gov/files/notices/2010/Oct/Intercept_Procedures.pdf)

[Carbon Bootprint]

Agreed, I would have thought it better to keep one on each side, even if one holds back some to see what develops.

TIO, your link doesn't seem to work for me.

[CurtainTwitcher]

Link that works In-Flight Intercept Procedures (http://web.archive.org/web/20150226054431/http://www.faa.gov/news/safety_briefing/2015/media/Intercept-Procedures.pdf) (archived copy so that link should always work)

[WingNut60]

The number two was always there, just out of shot behind the intercepted aircraft...........

Not sure that you're exactly correct there.
At about 1:26 an aircraft can be seen passing left to right at a lower altitude (about eight o'clock, sort of coming up through the clouds) and the BA crew man says "there's the other guy".
Looks like he may have climbed from a different location and performed a little circuit to come up from behind and join his mate.

[Bull at a Gate]

Slightly off topic so please ignore me if you wish, but is there any reason why the contrails from the 2 engines appeared to be different colours? Could it just be the angle of the sun, or is there some mechanical explanation?

[david1300]

Apparently filmed by a following BA flight.
Great video. How far behind would the BA flight be positioned?

[trim it out]

Not sure that you're exactly correct there.
At about 1:26 an aircraft can be seen passing left to right at a lower altitude (about eight o'clock, sort of coming up through the clouds) and the BA crew man says "there's the other guy".
Looks like he may have climbed from a different location and performed a little circuit to come up from behind and join his mate.
Good spot, I'd watched it without sound last night so missed that.

CurtainTwitcher, thank you.

[Uplinker]

Great video, guys. Nice one.

@Bull at a gate: The airliner's right contrail is partly in the shadow of the left one, hence the different colours.

Speaking of contrails, if you look closely when the first jet moves onto station, you can see distinct 'stepped' disturbances in its contrail as the flight controls are moved as he adjusts his lateral distance from the airliner, and then 'waggles his wings'.

[F-16GUY]

Very interesting video. A good sky for photography!

Could someone who knows about intercept procedures answer a couple of questions?

(1) The interceptor arrives beside the target but makes no manoevers to draw attention to himself. It's hard to tell the exact relative position but he seems to stay roughly abeam of the cockpit. Does he expect the target captain to look out sideways while in high-altitude cruise? Or it it left to passengers to tell CC to tell flight crew that there's a fighter alongside?

Procedure is to come up along the captain side abeam the cockpit, or if no response move a bit forward. Normally it would be the F.O. who spots the intercepter first, as he his looking cross cockpit at his captain, who is most likely blabbing away, which is why the F.O. missed all those radio calls in the first place;)

If no response the interceptor has several partytricks to get the airliners attention.

Funny thing is that most ADF fighters like the F-16, CF-18 and so on, have their identification lamp on the left side of the nose, which will make them join up on the right side of the target aircraft at night. Sneaking in on a "non-talker" at night, they normally start talking once the ID lamp switch is set to on.


(2) The interceptor's wingman turns up two minutes later. Is this normal? I thought they normally fly together?

It is normal procedure to let the wingman stay 1-2NM behind in a good position for weapons employment, until the situation has been sorted out. If there is no issues other then comm loss, the wingman will move forward for a better view once cleared by his lead. Some leads will order their wingman to the other side so pax on both side can get a propper view.

Another reason for one of the interceptors showing up late might be a technical malfunction on scramble, forcing the pilot to abort the aircraft and run for the spare.

When intercepting an airliner for reasons like technical assistance (visual inspection of landing gear etc.) it is good habit to remind the captain, to inform the passangers that interceptors will be joining up close shorty, so as to avoid any panic among the passangers.

[wiggy]

The interceptor's wingman turns up two minutes later. Is this normal? I thought they normally fly together?

Interesting assumption..don't forget there's "together" as in close formation - AFAIK not used that much in the upper air, and then there's "together" as in the tactical 1-2 miles apart stuff, trail, abeam or what ever the fashion is/circumstances dictate on the day.. ..

Edit to add: F-16 guy beat me to it and is obviously prepared to put a bit more meat on the bones than I was.........and TBF there is open source stuff about this...but I'd add there used to be a saying in the fighter world that "it's the one you don't see that gets you"...nuff said from me.

[atakacs]

Very interesting and spectacular video.

That being said what could be done concretely from a fighter ? I can imagine the very improbable case of the airliner being still flyable but having lost all NAV and COM. Extremely unlikely but ok... Past that there is the hijacking scenario. Assuming a positive identification of the situation can we seriously envision shooting down a fully loaded passenger aircraft over continental Europe? Given the probable time frame can we immagine, say, the Italian airforce shooting down an aircraft over Austria with the plane actually crashing in Hungary (just as an exemple to underline the massive mesh of overlaping sovereign airspaces)? I really hope we'll never have to find out...

[wiggy]

Assuming a positive identification of the situation can we seriously envision shooting down a fully loaded passenger aircraft over continental Europe?

In extremis and for the sake of public consumption I'd suggest the answer has to be yes...

[F-16GUY]

Not only shooting down but bringing down by any means...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/f-16-pilot-was-ready-to-give-her-life-on-sept-11/2015/09/06/7c8cddbc-d8ce-11e0-9dca-a4d231dfde50_story.html?utm_term=.5a20c4d4acbd

[sf25]

Quote:
Assuming a positive identification of the situation can we seriously envision shooting down a fully loaded passenger aircraft over continental Europe?
In extremis and for the sake of public consumption I'd suggest the answer has to be yes...


No, the answer HAS to be NO! ... at least in Germany (and we´re talking about Germany) the constitutional court has administered that it is against human dignity, to count up the lives of those on board against those of a potentially endangered public (no matter what the ratio of numbers is).

[hoss183]

If that's the case then why launch interception at all?, it's nothing more than a PR exercise.
I suspect if it came to a decision of saving lives by sacrificing a few it would be done and the legal aspects sorted out later.

p.s. having thought about that, there are other advantages than just PR- eyes on scene could aid adding information available on the incident or an investigation later. As demonstrated with the Helios accident.

[atakacs]

Well I guess there is always the highly unlikely case of the technical issue to which assistance could be rendered but I tend to agree that it is mostly, if not exclusively, a PR move... A good practical exercise for the people involved I'd say.

My point was more about the geography... Except for France, Spain, Germany and maybe Italy the timing from contact lost, intercept and action is just on the edge of the impossible. Case in point a few years ago (Feb 2014) the Swiss air force was scolded for not being able to intercept an Ethiopian Airlines aircraft that was hijacked by an apparently mentally unstable pilot (!) to Geneva. Problem is that the plane was only for a few minutes in Swiss airspace, escorted initially by Italian then French fighters. What was the chain of command in this case ?!

As for the WaPo article... well, as many things about 9/11... but not the place to discuss (if at all possible).

[atr-drivr]

Quote:
Assuming a positive identification of the situation can we seriously envision shooting down a fully loaded passenger aircraft over continental Europe?
In extremis and for the sake of public consumption I'd suggest the answer has to be yes...


No, the answer HAS to be NO! ... at least in Germany (and we´re talking about Germany) the constitutional court has administered that it is against human dignity, to count up the lives of those on board against those of a potentially endangered public (no matter what the ratio of numbers is).
I doubt you would be say that if 4 Lufthansa airplanes had been taken over and sent into Berlin...

[Mr Magnetic]

The statement is correct, the Bundesverfassungsgericht did make such a ruling.

It's interesting to consider where exactly the line could be drawn though...

Example: A lone gunman grabs an innocent hostage and holds them in front of himself while threatening to shoot other nearby innocents. Can his hostage be legitimately killed in order to protect other potential victims?

What if the gunman actually shoots and kills other innocents from this position?

What if his hostage is also carrying a baby?

Presumably there would need to be a formula considering the ratio of potential life lost if no action is taken to the number of innocents that will certainly be killed in the course of taking action. Does motive have any bearing? How can the intentions of the attacker(s) be determined and what is the test for this? Are the lives of innocents worth less or entitled to differing levels of protection if they cannot reasonably be expected to survive longer than a certain amount of time? How much time?

[Jwscud]

The airspace over Germany has always seemed to me the most likely place to have a PLOC. There are so many different frequencies for Rhein Radar and you are transferring almost every 2 minutes. Very easy to miss a change then lose the controller.

Plenty of European carriers have had issues over Germany too.

[fireflybob]

I agree but you just have to call on 121.500 MHz to establish a contact frequency (this assumes you realise that you have lost contact).

[F-16GUY]

Also goes the other way and I'd bet that Control tried to call them up multiple times on 121.5 with no response before considering to scramble the QRA jets. So my bet is that they did not have a radio set for 121.5, the volume was to low or they just didn't listen for the calls.

Furthermore, if they have been in german airspace before they should have wondered why they did not get handed over to the next frequency for such a long time, and maybe try to establish comms with privius agency, try on 121.5 or look it up in their flight pubs.

As I have found myself sitting in the cockpit multiple times during QRA scrambles towards "non-talkers", I seriously consider this pure airmanship when a crew of two pilots flying straight and level on full automatics at cruise altitude, are able to fly halfway across Europe without noticing that they should be talking to somebody.

Regarding the ethical dilemma of 1 aircraft full of pax VS many more people on the ground, I fully respect the germans with that regard. Main thing is that they have given it some thought before a potential incident takes place and that they have made the decision beforehand. Once the event is underway there won't be enough time to have this kind of debate.

http://www.allthetests.com/quiz31/picture/pic_1416409939_5.jpg?1436189258

I also bet that all other NATO contries have procedures in place for such a case, and that if a decision is made to bring down a civilian aircraft, this decision will not be a decision the pilot in the interceptor will have to make. This decision will be made in the highest leadership level.

[Heathrow Harry]

In casoes of pilot incapacitation there have been cases where the military have followed a flight until it has crashed

it's useful in that

a) it confrims that no-one was alive/awake in the cockpit,

b) coroners and insurance companies have a reliable witness to the unfortunate deaths - this can seriously speed up the paperwork for the bereaved in some jurisdictions

[Hotel Tango]

Happened hundred of times for a number of different reasons in my 40 plus years in ATC. Of course after 911 it needed to be handled differently, just in case.

As for releasing it to the press (did they though - or just put it on social media?), I think the intention was more one of interesting footage as opposed to wanting to be unkind to the JAI crew.

[Rule3]

Hotel Tango....Also happened many times in my 40 plus years in ATC and 90+% were for the same reason, and I am sure you know what that was.

[IcePack]

NoRad has happened for years. Granted but modern aircraft produce complacency & dare I say it boredom. They are so good at managing themselves you even have the time to video someone else's troubles. It would have been classic if the (BA) crew had gone NoRad too being distracted.
Generalising crew should obviously monitor active & guard freq but also be aware of their position & where rt handover should occure.
Learnt that once coming up France rt chat didn't stop but when prompted found no one receiving. Especially in recent times their is no excuse for NoRad.

[OldLurker]

F-16guy, thanks for the insights on interception.

The drawing you linked in #30 is of course an illustration of the famous trolley problem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem), which has many variants; I don't know whether the ethicists have nailed down the answer(s). In any case, as you say, governments have likely thought about the issue and come to conclusions and established procedures; if they haven't by now, they're negligent. But I wonder if there may be grey areas where neighboring governments have come to different conclusions. The Germans say, no shooting down, which like you I respect; the US apparently says, down the hijacked aircraft by any means. Each country presumably has its own policy somewhere in the spectrum between the German line and the US line. What happens when the aircraft is crossing borders between territories with different policies?

[F-16GUY]

What happens when the aircraft is crossing borders between territories with different policies?

Then the hijackers better know what policy is applied in the airspace they are in/on their way to....

[fireflybob]

I've been retired a couple of years now but last time I flew the international boundaries were not a feature on the map display.

Would it not help to have them clearly displayed?

PS In the olden days with steam driven equipment and rad nav charts (you know those paper things you had to fold and refer to for things like frequencies, idents, tracks etc) pilots were much more aware of the FIR boundaries.

[Basil]

The airspace over Germany has always seemed to me the most likely place to have a PLOC. There are so many different frequencies for Rhein Radar and you are transferring almost every 2 minutes. Very easy to miss a change then lose the controller.

Plenty of European carriers have had issues over Germany too.
Yup, I'd a loss of contact (on a line check, dammit!).
Thought: 'That's odd shouldn't we have been given a frequency change?' and then it takes a little time to establish comms with the next sector controller.

[PersonFromPorlock]

It beggars my mind that civil aviation radios don't monitor guard channel regardless of what their working frequency is. USAF radios have had this feature for fifty years or more.

They also have a switch to silence the monitor's output because not everyone has perfect comm discipline. :p

[mary meagher]

Northwest airbus flight 188, in 2009, enroute from San Diego to Minneapolis, the pilot was unresponsive to ATC for 90 minutes! they were about to scramble the fighter jets when the flight attendant asked the captain "What time were we supposed to be landing in Minneapolis?"

[accystanley]

Excuse my ignorance but what can these military planes do to protect the passengers??

[JammedStab]

Another good reason to log onto CPDLC where available. Another reason not to make it necessary to monitor company if you have ACARS.

[galaxy flyer]

fireflybob,

Don't know if the 787/A350 have it, but my last plane, the G6000, coukd display on the map view, either airspace or political boundaries. Also, if on out the cursor on "pen ship", the local comm frequencies were displayed and could be directly tuned.

acctystanley,

Not much, really

[F-16GUY]

Excuse my ignorance but what can these military planes do to protect the passengers??


Not much, really

I disagree galaxy flyer!

While its clear that QRA jets will not be able to save the passengers on board a hijacked aircraft, if the hijackers have full control of the flight deck and are intending to crash the aircraft, there are other benefits of having a military aircraft near by.

For the passengers and crew specifically it will provide the comfort of knowing that they are not alone and that someone is aware of their situation and working a solution.

For everybody else (ATC, other aircraft in the vicinity, decision makers) there is the benefits of knowing the hijacked aircraft exact location, speed, heading, altitude and other relevant information that an observant military pilot can provide (number of people in the cockpit, movement in the cabin etc.). Remember that it only requires the transponder to be turned off, for all the civies to lose track of the aircraft (ATC is blind, TCAS does not provide warnings - primary radars (if available) are not precise enough to provide propper seperation to other traffic).

For the people in the probable target building (9-11 scenario) it might be their rescue, if in a country where leadership are willing to make that extreme difficult decision and order the aircraft downed before it reaches its intended target.

Last but not least it will affect the hijackers. They now know that somebody is there to intervene with their plan, and that they might not achieve their objective.


My point was more about the geography... Except for France, Spain, Germany and maybe Italy the timing from contact lost, intercept and action is just on the edge of the impossible. Case in point a few years ago (Feb 2014) the Swiss air force was scolded for not being able to intercept an Ethiopian Airlines aircraft that was hijacked by an apparently mentally unstable pilot (!) to Geneva. Problem is that the plane was only for a few minutes in Swiss airspace, escorted initially by Italian then French fighters. What was the chain of command in this case ?!

Regarding atakacs question above, I think the reason for the Swiss not being able to react, has more to do with them being a neutral country working on their own. All other NATO countries are interconnected (chain of command wise) when it comes to the protection of their airspace. This means that if an aircraft is intercepted over Germany and the situation is not solved before it enters for instance UK airspace, UK QRA jets will be ready to take over the intercept when the aircraft crosses the FIR boundary.

I have personally been on QRA missions where the target aircraft was followed by QRA jets from 4 different countries during its flight, with each QRA handing it over to the next QRA at the FIR boundary.

[lexxie747]

2 indians not talking for 33 minutes, must be a record

[Aireps]

Great video. How far behind would the BA flight be positioned?
The footage was taken from BAW2042 at FL380, most of the time less than 1 NM behind JAI118, which was at FL360.

(Replay on PlaneFinder, NE of Cologne, 2017-02-16, time around 16:45 UTC)

Cheers.

[nats]

In the airspace I used to work, there would have been an exclusion zone put around the 'offending' aircraft and the QRA aircraft. In fact the crew commented about potential pull up from the interceptors.
I was surprised to see that the BA flight was allowed to be so close to the action.

[Less Hair]

They knew where the BA flight was and where it would go to. You seem to overestimate the drama factor in that situation. They just checked what's on and verified. Not that rare to happen.

Monitoring 121.5 might still have been helpful.

[Ian W]

Also goes the other way and I'd bet that Control tried to call them up multiple times on 121.5 with no response before considering to scramble the QRA jets. So my bet is that they did not have a radio set for 121.5, the volume was to low or they just didn't listen for the calls.

Furthermore, if they have been in german airspace before they should have wondered why they did not get handed over to the next frequency for such a long time, and maybe try to establish comms with privius agency, try on 121.5 or look it up in their flight pubs.

As I have found myself sitting in the cockpit multiple times during QRA scrambles towards "non-talkers", I seriously consider this pure airmanship when a crew of two pilots flying straight and level on full automatics at cruise altitude, are able to fly halfway across Europe without noticing that they should be talking to somebody.

Regarding the ethical dilemma of 1 aircraft full of pax VS many more people on the ground, I fully respect the germans with that regard. Main thing is that they have given it some thought before a potential incident takes place and that they have made the decision beforehand. Once the event is underway there won't be enough time to have this kind of debate.

http://www.allthetests.com/quiz31/picture/pic_1416409939_5.jpg?1436189258

I also bet that all other NATO contries have procedures in place for such a case, and that if a decision is made to bring down a civilian aircraft, this decision will not be a decision the pilot in the interceptor will have to make. This decision will be made in the highest leadership level.

With current technology it is extremely easy to just alter the recipient controller of a Voice over IP link from the aircraft. So as the aircraft is handed off to the next controller using the standard 'silent handoff' between controllers, the VOIP link automatically transfers to the next controller. The crew would then never need to 'change frequency' the voice comms would automatically be with the correct controller. This was demonstrated with live aircraft more than a decade ago. It is a bit antediluvian to be continually changing frequencies.

[Basil]

Most people do monitor 121.5.
In my loss of contact we initiated re-establishment.

[Chronus]

For all those involved 33 minutes( if that is the correct duration of silence )must have seemed a long time. Considering it was headed for London it must have been an intense time also for all those at CRC . Just imagine the available alternatives, had this been another Helios airways ghost plane. The crew do deserve a bit of a vindaloo rollocking.

[Smokey Lomcevak]

Could Nigel not just have sped up a bit until overhead? I'm sure a quick Descend RA would have got them talking to someone...

[Yaw String]

Lomcee,
Wonderful example of thinking outside the box.
I'm going to write that into our SOPs,asap!

[notapilot15]

Nigel was ahead until 16:30 UTC, slowed down to get better video.

[atakacs]

Is that a fact?

[ATC Watcher]

slowed down to get better video
Is that a fact?

Whow ! and you really believe that ? :rolleyes:

[DaveReidUK]

Nigel was ahead until 16:30 UTC, slowed down to get better video.

That's partly factual, and partly an alternative fact.

[sleeper]

Could Nigel not just have sped up a bit until overhead? I'm sure a quick Descend RA would have got them talking to someone...
Unless Ba decides to descend there will be no RA.

[notapilot15]

That's partly factual, and partly an alternative fact.
Relax. May be a mere coincidence. 9W118 was flying 10-12kts faster and caught up with BA which slowed down 2kts.

Assuming BA had front row seat to this drama... from 15:53 UTC to 16:26 UTC and aware of impending intercept, gawking is human nature.

@Yaw String, Hollywood already has a SOP for this, watch Executive Decision(1996). Use taillights to send morse code.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx4Q_ltT1go