Possible intercept
 

Loud sonic boom heard this morning around Bergamo,Milan area. FIghters seen, with news of possible civil traffic intercept over northern Italy..
Reports are that two Eurofighters,from Istrana,where scrambled and authorised (lol) to exceed Mach 1 to incercept a civil airliner that had entered italian airspace incommunicado!

http://images2.corriereobjects.it/me...v=201803221258

AF671 Saint-Denis (Reunion)-Orly.

Sight Seeing Aosta!
 

Nothing to see here!
Just a little sightseeing over my old base Aosta. Lovely place!
Fun flying and skiing on standby duty.
A tad tight for a 777, but you dont know until you try, Eh!
Squack 1200 and drop down for a look-see, Eh! ? Jean-Luc!

What happened here? Afaik intercepts usually allow the interceptee to just keep flying straight. Were they not allowed into france/switzerland (didnt quite manage anyhow) in this case?

Incident: France B773 over Northern Italy on Mar 22nd 2018, loss of communication

80 mins, the whole length of Italy with no comm's, and didn't notice? ... zzzzzzzz

It wasn't a B773 (-300), but a B77W (-300ER).

Still, close enough for government work (and for Avherald).

On strike?

Kind of odd if you look at the history for F-GZNF on a couple of tracking sites - cancelled or unknown with no flight track.

Not always. Sometimes crew may be prompted to perform a series of maneouvers to verify the aircraft is not being hijacked and is under full control by the flight crew. The circle may have been part of that verification.

Wow, good job you pointed that out, that makes so much difference to the overall story, oh wait... :rolleyes:

-RP

Watched this from the ski slopes in Tignes! I just thought the FAF were getting a little close to the border!!

Corriere della Sera has helpfully updated its graphic for any of its readers who might be struggling with the concept of an interception.

Re the delay in intercepting the Boeing, and while I'm apparently in picky mode:O, the Eurofighters are reported to have deployed from Istrana/Treviso, which is nowhere near any of Italy's three main EFA bases (Grosseto/Gioia del Colle/Trapani), so that may partly account (TDY/refuelling?) for what otherwise appears to have been a rather uncoordinated mission.

Not enough cheese left?
 

Anyone else think that these regular intercepts of airliners by presumably armed fighters are lining up too many holes in the cheese?[1] As I recall there was one in the UK quite recently.

20 Feb 2017 - Two German fighter jets intercepted a London-bound airliner[2]

February 18 2018 9:10 PM
Fighter jets from two countries ... Ryanair FR-9525 from Lublin in Poland to Stansted ... suffered a radio communications failure over the Netherlands...[3]

No one really seems to care. Certainly nothing in the press about £200,000 fines imposed on airlines or permanently unemployed pilots. Choose your medicine, I have no particular axe to grind there but I think these events should be very strongly discouraged.

The regulators need to find a way to further discourage the airlines from getting into these situations. I don't think it's a trivial matter. The sight of your friendly local air force outside the cabin would most certainly make me very uncomfortable.

One day ...

Aosta is a beautiful city, spent a while there once upon a time.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model
[2] London-bound flight is intercepted by two German fighters | Daily Mail Online
[3] https://www.independent.ie/irish-new...-36614996.html

The airlines training systems also need to ensure this happens less frequently, legislation and penalties can help but in the end its down to the human factors in both the cockpit and ATC systems.


The sight of your friendly local air force outside the cabin would most certainly make me very uncomfortable.


Why?


Highly trained crews, disciplined, governed by tight rules of engagement and they practice close formation every day.

jimjim1

I worked in ATC 45 years and can tell you that these type of intercepts have been going on since I started! Yes, we do care, but there are many varied reasons why a crew might lose comms, as has been covered here on PPRuNe over and over in the past. It happens and will continue to do so, penalties or not. It happens, period! Good practice for the air force defence guys anyway!

Airlines pilots are usually nervous in those occurrences, as they have no idea of what close formation is (same for intercepts, by the way) ....

Crew was probably on snapchat ;)

You know you might want to stick “some” into that statement in a few places otherwise you’ll upset the significant number of young and old f**s here who cut their teeth doing things like night intercepts and night close formation (perhaps before the days of NVGs) let alone the odd ex Reds pilot who you might now find making a living in 0A or OB....as for “nervousness” , well anyone who claims intercepts and close formation on an airliner don’t add an very slight element of risk to the equation is kidding themselves.

Entering Italian FIR near southern Brindisi and only get scrambled around northern Aosta,,,thats makes almost hour and half flying over mainland Italy without no comms or other signs, not even a 7600. I wonder how they managed to do it without being "busted" earlier for almost 90 minutes, specially having in mind how NATO'esque and military'busy Italy and Med'Sea shores are these days..!?

We don't actually know that's what happened.

All we do know is that comms were lost at some point between entering Italian airspace and the decision to intercept.

The Italian press are reporting simply that the AF "lost contact" with ATC, without any indication of where that occurred.