Near collision over Sweden
 

Russian plane has near-miss with passenger aircraft over Sweden | World news | The Guardian
My apologies if already posted

near by military standards differs greatly from near by civilan standards

"nearly collided with a passenger jet over Sweden"

"the incident in international air space was fairly serious"

They can't both be correct - which was it?

DaveReidUK

It was international space, between Sweden and Denmark but close to Swedish borders.

It is more and more common that Russian planes with different military uses fly around without transponders across the Nordics. Very disturbing, not only from an air safety view but also from the political implications.

Russian air force airplanes DO NOT HAVE western transponders at all !!!!!
They are flying BETWEEN western floght levels (as example at 31500 ft).
They say they are flying over NEUTRAL territories...
It is ONLY problem for the ATC, but not for civil airplanes (I hope)

Of course it is a problem, or do you think that planes get beamed into their cruising altitude and back down again?

Well maybe its time the Swedish military woke up and tried to identify inbound traffic on primary (military) radar before it enters "their" airspace?

Ehm, I believe it might be the other way around. ATC can't see the planes so as far as they ar concerned they don't exist. The civilian airplane that almost collides with it while climbing to its assigned altitude otoh might have found the information about its existence most useful. Poor pilots I guess would like a quick trip to the toilet to relieve the tension that springs from having a near-death experience along with the rest of the crew and passengers. One instance this spring had a separation of about 100 metres. While it may sound much, I'm sure the pilots still were, let's say, concerned about the situation.


In a futile attempt to try and stand up for my country I believe the military does its best with the equipment and personnel available. I'm sure though that now (reference: Swedish submarine hunt this fall) the whole world knows how ill treated the Swedish Army has been during these 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

It is with much embarrassment I acknowledge that our gouvernment has spent far more money on seriously destroying our educational system (did you hear about the last PISA report? We are behind countries like Vietnam..) and creating riots in segregated suburbs than anything else.

You would like to think that this fall's underwater vessel hunt has been a wake up call for everyone in charge but sadly this was not the case. We just had an election in Septembre, but the parliamentary situation has gone from bad to worse and we will hold a re-election this spring, in March.

Well, somewhere there's a primary radar that can see the target aircraft......

I get the impression, perhaps wrongly, that some of you underestimate the military defence networks and what THEY can see.

Well, it doesn't look like it saw much this time...

To see or not to see
 

Both the Swedish military and the Danish military are well equipped to detect those planes with primary radars.

One of our main task while scrambling QRA jets towards such "visiters", is to fly up along side of the plane in question and thereby make it visable to the civilian ATC agencies. This basicly works by the fact that we fly the QRA jets with their transponders on, in close proximity to "visiters". Both the Swedish and Danish QRA does that.

Only problem is that we have limited playtime, and since the IL-20 Coot A can hang around for hours, we need to leave him at some point, since we need to go home and refuel.

In both this incident and the one that happend earlyer this year, the Coot A was followed by either Swedish Gripens or Danish F-16 (or both) prior to the incident. Unfortunately it was left alone at some point due to the fighters need for more fuel, and that was when the incidents happend.

It is my impression that the latest incident was not as close a call as the earlyer event.

And then again, there is more airspace around the other aircraft:ok:

This is a political problem.

That's where the QRA gets hamstrung...

Maybe its time Sweden put its neutrality behind it and choose up sides.

So we , all of the western oriented free countries, better start building up our military AGAIN.

I might be completely wrong but I think there might be a system of relay's when one fighter is about to reach a low fuel state another one take its place. I might ignore issues like fighters availability, cooperation between 2 countries (one NATO member the other neutral) etc but I am ready to learn more.

Agreed, most of the Danish newspapers seem to be wondering why Sweden is making quite such a fuss about it.

I had thought about starting a thread about these incidents myself - it seems to be a general problem in North-West Europe these days. I'd have tried to choose a more general title.

Is there a similar problem in the Sea of Japan ?

With the Russian economy tanking under their current kleptocracy, it's perhaps unsurprising that the Russian government seeks nationalist diversions. Anyone remember Chechnya or Georgia ?

I would guess that say - a collision between an Il-20M and an A320 - would be portrayed in Russia as an act of "terror" or reckless brinkmanship by the evil West .

The incentive for the kleptocracrats seems to be to up the ante till something spectacular happens. They ain't flying.

Regarding interceptor range, maybe a Gulfstream would work better than an F16 ?

Quote...
Regarding interceptor range, maybe a Gulfstream would work better than an F16 ?


Is that the 'Special Missions' Gulfstream fitted with the 0.50 Calibres and Tracer Rounds?

http://www.gulfstream.com/images/upl...alMissions.pdf

Perhaps because it's part of a pattern that's been going on for a few weeks..

BBC News - Russia Baltic military actions 'unprecedented' - Poland

Do we give some credit to the Russki pilot....

... he would have known where the passenger aircraft was, wouldn't he ?

When he hit it, he certainly would.

for the people with a short memories...:ugh:

Mail Online - Peter Hitchens blog

I wouldn't give that fool the time of day, never mind generate any click-through revenue for the 'thinking man's Sunday Sport'.

I suspect from your post you have not flown any actual intercepts. Intercepting any target at high altitude and Mach is very difficult. It would be almost impossible if you did not have a huge thrust and speed advantage. Most intercepts are done from the forward quarter and it takes very careful coordination to time a intercept turn and join on a target cruising at .83 Mach. In most cases the interceptor is also climbing. It takes tremendous power to sustain a 3G turn at 35000 feet while climbing. Running down a target from behind in a jet only capable of .9 mach would take forever if you elected a stern conversion.

The reason Swedish agencies are concerned about this Russian military aircraft activity is, as stated, the pollitical implications. I am a bit surprised when F-16GUY seem to implicate that the Danish take this event lightly, I hope I misunderstood. It is serious business to have military equipment trawling around in busy airspace without alerting anyone. This is not only about aircraft safety. I do not know if Russian military planes have the ability to see our civilian jets without being seen themselves. I for sure hope they do because then the imminent danger to both aircrafts would be somewhat reduced. As someone said - a mid air collision with an A320 and some Ilyushin snooper would surely be portrayed as "evil Western countries deliberately taking out innocent Russians".

glendalegoon: This would be an easy solution for the US, I am sure. I won't go into long discussions about it now, but due to our geographical position it isn't that easy for us Swedes. Sweden is not as big as the US, nor are we as dominant as the UK. We are not rich like Germany or stubbornly proud as France. Thus we just can't afford it because we're stuck between a rock and a hard place, politically.

Someone asked about Japan. I would like to know how the activity has been in Alaska these days. Anyone who knows?

I just found an article about the Russian ambassador in Denmark. According to his statement this whole incident never happened.

Article in Swedish: Ryske ambassadören: ?Svenskarna röker för mycket gräs? | Nyheter | Aftonbladet

Article in Danish: Ambassadør: »Lad være med at provokere den russiske bjørn« - Globalt | www.b.dk

From the Swedish article:
Translation:
Vanin suggest that the Swedish accusations [about the close flying aircraft] are part of an orchestrated campaign that tries to picture Russia as a very dangerous neighbour.

From the Danish article:
Translation:

"Every ATC on earth - Danish, Swedish, Polish, Balitc and so on, can see every plane in the air, regardless if they fly with the transponder on. They can see its height and speed and they know that military planes usually fly with the transponder off. Generally, military planes do not communicate with foreign *AAs. NATO flights doesn't communicate with Moscow to tell what they are up to. But we can see them on the radar all the time" says the Russian ambassador.

Either the tanslation is misleading of the Ambassador was fed wrong info possibly for a purpose. As MH270 showed it is unfornutaley not the case.
That said, like in the previous case I think someone in Sweden is blowing this out of proportion in the media , also for a purpose.

MrSnuggles wrote

Tu-95MS Bear H were active off North America during the 8th December.

Sun News : Canadian fighter jets intercept two Russian bombers off the northwestern coast

@MrSnuggles

You misunderstod. We take it very seriusly. Thats why we will scramble our QRA jets every time there is a non squawker and fly up along side of him. That is the best way to make him visible to the civies.:ok:

The Tu-95s were also active around Guam on the 13th December.

Russian Nuclear Bombers Again Buzz Guam | Washington Free Beacon

Russian air force takes first modernised Tupolev bombers - 12/19/2014 - Flight Global

Deep concern
 

This incident is a reason for deep concern here in Poland.

Every such manoeuvre can end up deadly.

The best example is the recent accident in Germany.
In this case the business jet simulating passenger airliner
had just two pilots on board. Both of them died,
the fighter jet landed safely.

On 23 June 2014, a mid-air collision occurred over Olsberg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, during an exercise simulating the interception of a civilian airliner that was out of radio contact. One of the aircraft consequently crashed; both occupants died. The other aircraft landed safely.

2014 Olsberg mid-air collision - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Best example of what, exactly?

The thread is about an airliner being turned away by ATC from a potential conflict with an unidentified, transponder-less Russian.

That incident doesn't appear to have much, if anything, in common with a practice interception that went wrong.

"I do not know if Russian military planes have the ability to see our civilian jets without being seen themselves."

the pilots probably wouldn't fly without that capability as I doubt they are suicidal