Trainee Trauma
 

there's a story about a ''near mid air collision'' which supposedly occurred the other day at swanwick centre on the teletext on BBC this morning, but theres nothing on their web page about it.

Seems a trainee made an arse of it and the mentor was unable to get the high quality state of the art training box to work to correct his mistake... trainee managed to correct it in time though.

Bit quick to jump on the old trainee there !

I heard that the trainee descended an aircraft after checking strips and radar. Unknown to him there was traffic directly underneath not co-ordinated in, with no strip, and had been relegated to a background track, and thus was invisible. Then the training box went u/s and it all got a bit close.

At least that's the story here at TC........anyone from the Great Level Capping centre care to comment?

Don't know much else about it, but there's a link below to a newspaper which has a bit about it.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk...l&siteid=89488

EXPEDITE you,ve got it just about right. Thats the same story i heard, its down to substandard equipment again.

If it is a case that the training box failed then I for one will be refusing to train until such time that EVERY single training box has been checked and signed as serviceable by the Manager ATC OPS at LACC.

At least then he can come to the dock with me if the worst ever happens.:mad: :mad:

Background tracks - now there is a new one!! I'm sure them upstairs on the top floor will say this is the first they know about the problem. Let it be said it is HERE and it is a BIG problem that needs attention.:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

The news here is talking of 2 miles and quotes the minimum as 3. Usual inaccuracy by the media. I'm not aware of anywhere in UK airspace where we can use 3 miles at FL320, are you?

The BIG problem is that of "background tracks".....it always sends a shiver up my spine !!!

What a ridiculous system to have working in airspace that is as confined as is the case in the UK.

OK, so the mentor's override equipment was faulty - or didn't work as it should.....but that is not a design fault, however the utilisation of background tracks IS. To my mind, it's this that was the fundamental cause of this Airprox, and is as dangerous as showing SSR only !!

What a BL***Y system !!!!!!!!

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

250 kts:

Why all the demands to get other people to check these training boxes?

I'm sure that I can't be the only person who ALWAYS does a test transmission on his training box as soon as he sits down with a trainee. This is good practice and has identified a problem with the 'black box' to me on at least one occasion in the past. If it then doesn't work, you take it to the engineers who return it with a little 'servicable' label on it. That's their guarantee to us and them taking their share of responsibility.

Seems to me from this incident that the problem with inter-sector cordination is making itself apparent not only between LACC & LTCC but also now internally at Swanwick. Having also had personal experience of this sort of failure recently, I'd be more worried about that as you are less able to mitigate against it with simple checks.

Regards

Sad.

I understand that it was tested during the handover and worked fine. Apparently there are also at least 2 other instances of them failing in the recent past.

Sad, if you are still at LATCC you may not be aware that these are a completely new type of box.

All i was trying to say was that I don't fancy being the only one in the dock should one of these things fail and cause a nasty. Remember whose licence is at risk and if the OJTI were to know that there was a potential problem with this equipment and continued to use it, then I don't think he'd have much of a leg to stand on.

atco-matic the trainee did not make an arse out of the situation he followed procedures to a 't'. The French hadn't bothed sending the estimate to LACC and therefore the trainee had no strips on the flight. Due to the range setting on the radar the second aircraft was not clearly visable and was a background track. Remember we were all trainees once!!!

Whilst the phrase 'trainee made an arse of it' may not be borne out in fact, the point surely is that a sequence of errors occurred and the equipment which should have broken that sequence failed to do its job. That is serious, and is what should be sorted, rather than pointing fingers.

We all know that most accidents are not caused by one single event, but a chain which links up. If any of the links are missing or are broken then the accident doesn't happen. If we are relying on the new equipment at Swanwick to break that chain and it is not doing so, then the travelling public should be alarmed!:eek: :eek:

sorry all (grovel grovel), i was only reporting what I had heard on the news!

Bit of paper has appeared from the union (not LACC Mgt) saying that the training boxes are not to be used for live r/t training.

Although the problem with the OJTI boxes needs to be addressed, and quickly, the MAIN point is that of the use of "background tracks"

THAT is what caused this Airprox.....and THAT is a dangerous system !!

BWatchGrunt
 

Hey "BWatch" you wouldn't have been working the TDU about 18 months back would you?

Direct HALIFAX: This is typical of this company at the moment:mad: :mad: :

1) Computer failure due Irish Gap problem triggered by amendment to FPL.
Result: Bit of paper saying: 'Don't do this'

2) Problems in NAS caused by use of CC.
Result: Bit of paper saying: 'Don't do this'

3) Airprox (or loss of sep) partly caused by failure of training box.
Result: Bit of paper saying: 'Don't use training box'.

When will this company sort itself out and give us and the travelling public a system which is stable and able to do the job it is supposed to without these sticking plasters all over the place? Finger in the dyke (attractive as that may sound to some individuals:D ) only works in the stories.:rolleyes:

Any ATC system which permits traffic not to be displayed in a sector merely because the computer does not know about it is a BAD ATC system. At Swanwick the only traffic which is foreground is known traffic. Aircraft on the wrong SSR code will be background. Thus if the code is to be changed on entry into UK airspace it will remain background until the code is changed. Only the tactical controller will see the background track if the planner is working on foreground tracks only. Finally, the "Intruder Alert" system will only work with foreground tracks. Therefore the really dangerous intruder (in other words the one you don't know anything about) will not trigger the safety system.

Great isn't it:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

Z

The mentor box 'problem' only became fully known when actual mentors started to use them for real. The 'fault' which caused the malfunction of the mentor box in the recent airprox was a lose wire, as happens often with headsets etc. given lots of use.

However it has given us (support staff) the ammunition to fire off an urgent Investment Proposal (NATS management speak for getting them to spend some money) to completely re-design and purchase replacement mentor boxes soonest.

BTW for those who find they don't like the background/foreground radar picture it is very simple to change the MMI, making background = foreground, so you can see EVERYTHING on your screen.

trainee
 

i thought trainees were fireproof and if theres any flak the screen gets it? at least thats what happens in the raf.