Virgin 737 in near miss
 

Just heard 3LO report a near miss (RA) involving a Virgin 737 and a "private aircraft" North West of ML
Confirmed by Virgin spokesman.
Anybody have any details?

AAP

Virgin plane in air near-miss
December 3, 2003

A VIRGIN Blue flight activated its collision avoidance system today as it went within 20 seconds of crashing into a light plane north-west of Melbourne.

The air traffic controllers union, Civil Air, blamed the near miss involving the Virgin 737 and a twin-engine Cessna on the new National Airspace System.

The new airspace rules, which came into effect last Thursday, allow light planes into areas used by commercial airliners.

Civil Air president Ted Lang called on federal Transport Minister John Anderson to immediately suspend the new airspace system pending a full review.

Airservices Australia confirmed that Virgin flight DJ980 from the Gold Coast to Melbourne and the Cessna were 55 nautical miles from Melbourne when the 737's collision warning system was automatically activated 20 seconds before impact about 10am (AEDT).

The warning system tells the pilot to maintain his flight level to avoid impact.

Mr Lang said he understood the planes nearly collided when the 737 was given clearance to descend into the newly downgraded airspace.

The Cessna requested an alternative operating instruction - which is not required under the new rules - while "sandwiched" between the 737 and an air ambulance.

"This result is a direct result of the new airspace regime," Mr Lang said.

"Controllers and pilots are under immense pressure and unreasonable pressure.

"In this case not even the "see-and-avoid" collision procedures were effective."

Airservices Australia, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and Virgin Blue are independently investigating the incident.

Airservices Australia spokesman Richard Dudley said it was the ninth incident since last Thursday under investigation that may by attributed to the new rules.

Mr Lang said the real figure was closer to 20.

"The safety of the public should not be determined by bureaucratic definitions of infringements or incidents, especially the same bureaucracy responsible for this debacle," he said.

AAP

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I'm waiting for all the Pro-Nas AOPA guys to come on here now and say, "look the system worked, they didn't hit". Well ask the crew of the Virgin Aircraft how they feel about TCAS saving their lives and I think their opinion of NAS will be a little less complimentary.

It sounds horrible but the safest thing long term for the flying public would be to have a few more misses like this (with no hits!) and to show the system for what it is....DANGEROUS.

ABC News Online

Wednesday, December 3, 2003. 10:36pm (AEDT)

Virgin confirms mid-air scare

A report has been prepared for the Australian Transport Safety Bureau about an apparent near miss involving up to three aircraft, north-west of Melbourne this morning.

There are claims the planes were about to share the same airspace before air traffic controllers stepped in.

Virgin Blue's head of strategy David Huttner has confirmed a Virgin 737 with 104 passengers on board from the Gold Coast was involved in what he calls an "occurrence".

"There was an occurrence this morning and we immediately filed a report with the Australian Transport Safety Board," he said.

Air Traffic Control Association president Ted Lang says a medical flight and twin engine Cessna aircraft were about to share air space with the 737, when the Virgin plane's collision warning system activated with a full alarm

"My understanding is that without the air traffic controllers' intervention, the light aircraft or the private aircraft and the 737 would have been occupying the same air space at around about the same time," he said.

Mr Lang says the situation is the result of Australia's controversial new air space regulations which came into effect a week ago.

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More info required
 

Did this near miss happen in "E" airspace? The Virgin 737 on a normal descent profile would transit the "E" airspace such that it would be at F180 around 55dme and back into "C" airspace at 40dme and F130. Surely at these levels the aircraft involved (the "Cessna twin") must have been IFR??

On the face of it, this incident would seem unlikely to be the "IFR Vs VFR conflict in E airspace" scenario we are all dreading. It will be interesting to hear the actual account.

What a sorry, misguided rabble you are.

I, for one, am with Mr Dudley (that admirable fellow) one hundred percent - when he eventually comes up with his usual reasonable, plausible and well researched analysis of this misconception of a perfectly normal procedure.

His experience and understanding of the operational aviation environment is far beyond any miserable understanding of yours.

In fact, I believe he may have been a Business Class Passenger several times! Can you imagine?

I know for a fact that he has far more knowledge of the application of spin techniques than any of you malingerers.

I also know that he treats truth and decency as a way of life. As evidence I offer the public handling of the various TAAATS (near) disasters and the last ATC EBA.

regards,

Clothears.

PS. I have heard that some misinformed souls cling to the opinion that the operational aviation environment is no place for PR spivs. FOOLS! GET WITH THE PROGRAM!

(edited to remove booze laden rant, and replace it with booze laden sweetness and light!)

Clothears I actually had my nuts go into their caves in anger when I read the first 2 lines of your post. Thankfully the truth in what you said and the truth in what Dick Dud come out with are exactly the same.

p.s. I started a thread about this myself. Must read first. *deleted*

heres what I rotes thow

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1002882.htm


The Air Traffic Control Association is calling for the immediate suspension of the National Airspace System after what it calls a "near miss" in Victoria yesterday.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) is investigating an incident involving up to three aircraft in the skies over Melbourne.

Virgin Blue's head of strategy David Huttner has confirmed a Virgin 737 with 104 passengers on board from the Gold Coast was involved in what he calls an "occurrence".

"There was an occurrence this morning (Wednesday) and we immediately filed a report with the Australian Transport Safety Board," he said.

Association president Ted Lang says a Cessna was travelling between a 737 and a medical flight when it requested clearance to move.

He says the Virgin flight was cleared to descend at the same time, and the planes were just 20 seconds away from impact when the 737's collision warning system activated.

Mr Lang says air traffic controllers helped prevent a disaster.

"The aircraft was already under some instruction from air traffic control, but the advice was to maintain their current level, otherwise they were going to be in very, very close proximity to the aircraft," he said.

He says the new airspace regulations are to blame.

"My biggest concern is that the air traffic controller involved is going to be the scapegoat out of this whole system, but unfortunately this is an outcome of the National Airspace System that's been recently introduced and the person that's responsible for this is the Minister for Transport and Regional Services, John Anderson," he said.

Thurs "Melbourne Age"

Virgin Blue in 'near miss'
By Adam Morton
December 4, 2003

A Virgin Blue aircraft activated its collision avoidance system yesterday as it came within 20 seconds of a possible collision with a light plane north-west of Melbourne.

The air traffic controllers union, Civil Air, blamed the near miss involving the Virgin Boeing 737 and a twin-engine Cessna on the new National Airspace System.

The new airspace rules, which came into effect a week ago, allow light planes into areas used by commercial airliners.

Civil Air president Ted Lang called on the federal Transport Minister, John Anderson, to immediately suspend the new system pending a full review.

Richard Dudley, a spokesman for Airservices Australia, the Federal Government body that manages Australian air space, said Virgin flight DJ980 from the Gold Coast to Melbourne and the Cessna were 55 nautical miles from Melbourne when the 737's collision warning system was automatically activated about 10am.

The warning system tells the pilot to maintain his flight level to avoid impact.

Mr Dudley said an air traffic controller had been stood down following the incident to provide information to investigators, but stressed this was routine procedure.

He could not say how close the planes had been.

Mr Lang said he understood the aircraft nearly collided when the 737 was given clearance to descend into the newly downgraded airspace.

The Cessna requested an alternative operating instruction - which is not required under the new rules - while "sandwiched" between the 737 and an air ambulance.

Virgin Blue spokesman David Huttner last night confirmed an incident involving one of the airline's planes occurred, but disputed that the two aircraft had been only 20 seconds away from crashing.

"The idea the two aircraft were 20 seconds away... certainly at this point in time nobody has all the facts to make such a statement," he said. "It's speculative at best." He said Virgin would investigate the incident and report to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.

"We cannot say at this point in time whether these events were in any way related to the new traffic rules.

"Anybody that would be suggesting those rules were the cause would be making comments without the complete information," Mr Huttner said.

Airservices Australia and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau are also investigating.

Mr Dudley said it was the ninth investigation of an incident in NAS airspace since the new regulations were introduced.

But Mr Lang said the real figure was closer to 20. "The safety of the public should not be determined by bureaucratic definitions of infringements or incidents, especially the same bureaucracy responsible for this debacle," he said.

A spokesman for Mr Anderson warned against assuming the incident was related to the new system, saying the ATSB investigated several incidents a year. He said both aircraft were in contact with the air traffic controller in Melbourne.

"The public should be reminded that Ted Lang of Civil Air has previously claimed there were near misses in Canberra and Tamworth," he said. "On both occasions he was utterly incorrect."

- AAP

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My thoughts would be that if the Air Traffic Controllers Association felt so strongly they would attempt to cease these new procedures in order to protect their own members as well as the travelling public!

Bet your life Anderson will insist a controller be sacrificed in order to preserve the integrity of his almighty NAS.

Refusing to operate under the NAS guidelines would certainly make Mr Anderson look like an idiot and make the public wake up and support the Air Traffic fellas as well as AIPA on this one.

Our hands are tied to a great extent by the workplace relations legislation that would allow us to be pursued in the courts by both our employer and any other party that felt they were disadvantaged by our "illegal industrial action".

Airspeed Ambassador- the NAS steps do not work for jets intending to remain A to C and of course their airways clearance applies A, C and E. They hug or slip out of the steps so companies may need to adjust descent profiles per location.

At certain locations they must transition A to E to D (eg no-RADAR Alice) where there is quadruple Whammy (without adding any reduced viz due PO etc):

No RADAR
Lower use or availability of transponder
E airspace - unannounced VFR (including at FL's)
No talking - naughty naughty,

Still counting,........

Maybe, before anyone gets too excited, we should await the incident reports to understand what actually happened in this case and draw any conclusions.

Mr. Lang is attributed as having said: Meanwhile, the Virgin Blue spokesman is attributed as having said:Surely it couldn't be that the ATC professional association is seeking to leverage any / every incident which occurs post 27 November to generate sensational news coverage, and seeking to link it to NAS to suit a particular agenda, coud it? Could it?

And look at the near salacious excitement that this has seemed to generate amongst many on this thread, climaxing with RTB RFN's ramblings ... something about Lets take these one at a time: Was it within radar coverage? Presumably so as it was within 55NM of sMelbourne. Did the incident occur in Class E, and if so where was that fact reported? Was the VFR unannounced / not talking on the radio? Have not similar incidents occured before, pre- NAS?

I suppose it may be frustrating and inconvenient when the facts don't fit your argument: but let's not let that stop us, eh boys!? I suggest that there may not yet be enough factual information available in the public domain, as presented so far, for pro- or anti-NAS to claim that this incident proves anything other than a concerted effort on the part of Mr. Lang to defend his colleague (admirable, for sure) and to try and simultaneously leverage the incident to advance the anti-NAS stance of his organisation.

That this is primarily a political rather than a safety issue is very clearly exposed by Mr Lang's final quotation above:Should the incident turn out to NOT be linked to NAS, then this tack may well back-fire. Vice versa, if NAS is proven to be a causal factor in the incident, then those who are pro-NAS will have to accept it. Until then, it might be smarter to keep an open mind.

All the best,



Andy :ok:

VFR Conquest called "We are upgrading to IFR", controller "squawk ident"....omg "squawk Mode C" (because he didn't have it on !). Virgin "we have an RA". FL 175 near Canty

Gotta love this quote:

Is that mediaspeak for a crash or what!!?? :D

F%^king scary if the bit about not having Mode C selected is true. Maybe very lucky the Conquest picked that time to upgrade.

The problem is, most of the 'supporters'have no idea about the reality of the increased risks.

No one will believe it has faults until there is an accident.

PS Andy, do us all a favour and stick to what you know about - cause you have no experience or idea about what the majority of us are talking about here- and you're just taking up our time & bandwidth. You get on this site and you split hairs and contradict the very experts - the ATCers who have to make this ****e work - about the problems of the new system.

But you know better having flown 100 hours in a warrior (some of it even in Australia!)

Before you get your tits in a tangle, if you want to play, explain to us how the new system (not that you have operated in it) DOESN't degrade safety - I await to see some positives -so that I , and others) might just see something we have missed (no pun intended).

First we had the accident vs incident scenario courtesy of BKK but now the latest Huttner spindoctoring is "occurrence". Wake up and smell the roses man & acknowledge the seriousness of what happened! :zzz: :zzz:

Maybe now we'll now be able to file a CAOR - confidential aviation occurrence report??? :8 :8

The agrument against NAS has been about those pesky unprofessional VFR guys flying their bugsmashers in Class E and forgetting to squawk mode C.

Here is our first possible incident and it was a pressurised turboprop probably flown by a professional pilot.

Be careful out there.

Bevan..

On checking the charts, its worth noting that nearly every airline will pass through this horrible "E" airspace on descent to every airport in Australia. To make matters worse, the airspace boundary changes at different airports (just to confuse everybody). It varies from 30 dme Cooly & Canberra, 36 dme at Adelaide, 40 dme at Brissy & Melbourne to 45 dme at Sydney. So for example, a B737 from the north, making a straight in approach to Rwy 16 in Melbourne, is probably down to 11,000ft at 40 dme, so is in class"e" airspace and has been for a few minutes - so the chances of a miss or hit ARE real, plus throw in that VFR are not even supposed to talk on the radio anymore!!

While this system may work if there is just one or two aircraft in the air at one time, throw in another dozen or so and with a couple of VFR unknowns and I doubt if the best controllers could guarantee us safe separation. This new system lowers the safety levels, just so a few "dopey ducks" can fly around VFR more.

Lets not forget that there will be occasions where jets will be cruising below FL245 in "E', during short sectors and on those days when turbulence and strong headwind necessitate being down lower than normal. So the risk is there and any one who believes that transponders, TCAS and Mark "1" eyeball will save the day in all situations, has rocks in their heads.

So its time "dopey duck" and supporters of NAS take it back from where it came and stay there. :*

The way they'll try and fix this is with Windows style "patches". There'll be hundreds of them, making life even more difficult for pilots and ATC's. None of them will address the root problem.

C'mon Bernie, get behind your troops and do something positive now, before we're buried in paperwork.

CG

Ausy Andy - head back in terry toweling hat please (how many NdP's can a bloke have?) - clearly you have no idea - and that is all the time I will waste on you this lifetime.

On another note ;

Consider what needs to be done to get this reversed - change in reverse is complicated and has its own hazards - charts and AIP book amendments, RADAR system re-programming, pilot and ATC education If it ever happens (and I doubt it) you're looking at six months for a full reversal.

I wonder if there are some contingency strategy meetings happening right now - and I wonder who is and isn't invited (or who will turn up anyway).

Ah interesting times.

Oh and did I say "get %^&**" - Ausy Andy!