Airservices Australia screwup

[Exadios]

An article about screwups at Airservices.

 

 

[old man emu]

Hmmm. Incident occurred in December 2009.

 

Must've been a slow news day when this story hit the wires.

 

OME

 

 

[Guest Crezzi]

The ATSB report was published on 24th June hence the story hitting the news now

 

 

[flying dog]

Ok, I'll bite:

 

With the newly imposed rules for us when flying above 5000 feet and the altitudes we have to fly at (East Odd+500, West EVEN+500) for VFR and IFR are at the thousand levels - just to clarify that, IFR EAST = ODD thousands feet, WEST = EVEN thousands feet) and the planes were both at FL 370, it begs the question: HOW!?

 

The article says they were on a DIRECT HEADON course. Unlike the collisoin over Eurpoe a while ago with the DHL and Russian plane converging.

 

Why had the initial controller assigned the "wrong" level? Or to put it less harshly: Why was the plane asisgned a level which seems to be in contradiction to what they are supposed to fly at?

 

It (surley) isn't the fault of the controller who finally had them, but they need to look at how the plane/s were assigned thier given altitudes BEFORE being passed on to the last controller.

 

 

[Exadios]

Ok, I'll bite:With the newly imposed rules for us when flying above 5000 feet and the altitudes we have to fly at (East Odd+500, West EVEN+500) for VFR and IFR are at the thousand levels - just to clarify that, IFR EAST = ODD thousands feet, WEST = EVEN thousands feet) and the planes were both at FL 370, it begs the question: HOW!?

 

The article says they were on a DIRECT HEADON course. Unlike the collisoin over Eurpoe a while ago with the DHL and Russian plane converging.

 

Why had the initial controller assigned the "wrong" level? Or to put it less harshly: Why was the plane asisgned a level which seems to be in contradiction to what they are supposed to fly at?

 

It (surley) isn't the fault of the controller who finally had them, but they need to look at how the plane/s were assigned thier given altitudes BEFORE being passed on to the last controller.

I think the story is the inadequate planning conducted at Airservices. This incident is just one expression of that deficiency.

 

 

[youngster]

Surely there must be some sort of system at Airservices Australia which sets off sirens and blaring alarms when it senses an imminent collision?

 

Flying Dog, The report did indicate that there are still problems managing aircraft flying at non-standard operating levels. Apparently the Virgin 737 climbed to FL370 to avoid mild turbulence earlier in the flight, all with the blessing of Airservices, obviously not enough was done to manage what happened next.

 

 

[flying dog]

Granted. But the plane should have returned to its original assigned altitude.

 

Comments?

 

 

[FlyingVizsla]

I haven't been as interested in air traffic control at Flight Levels for some time, so a lot may have changed, so I hope someone with more knowlege will step in and correct my errors. The altitudes we use (odd thousand + 500 etc) apply below 10,000 feet. Above that are the Flight Levels (FL 370 = 37,000ft) where altitutde is assigned by air traffic controllers. When passing through 10,000 they set the QNH to mean sea level, so everyone is at the same height regardless of the local QNH. They do use standard assignments, however pilots can request (but don't always get) another level. They do this to avoid things - usually adverse winds which gives them better times and fuel economy. Getting cleared to a non standard level is rare but not unusual and it is passed as an alert to the next controller. TAATS has all the bells and whistles to calculate any conflicts and warn the controller of potental break down in separation well before it becomes desperate. No idea why it was left to the pilots to take evasive action, except that the controller didn't handle the warnings well enough.

 

Sue

 

 

[flying dog]

My take on it is this:

 

Below 5000 it is anybody's guess.

 

5000 to 10,000 is the "newer" rules:

 

VFR EAST bound (Track) ODDS+500

 

VFR WEST bound (Track) EVENS+500

 

IFR EAST bound (Track) ODDS

 

IFR WEST bound (Track) EVENS

 

This way IFR/VFR has a minimum seperation of 500 feet.

 

I agree that flights may change from the "Standard" but *IF* the flight moved to another altitude to avoid bad weather, I would have thought it "good airmanship" that once passed, get back in touch with the controller and get back to your original assigned altitude. But I guess that is in a different world to this one. ;)

 

 

[FlyingVizsla]

Its a different world up above 10,000 - ATC control the flight levels and TAATS displays them on screen. A pilot can request to move - and shouldn't without ATC approval (unless there's an immediate safety issue). Once there it is up to ATC to move them again. That's what all their training and procedures are about.

 

Sue