#6334 #6335
[Third Issue of the Day]
#1
Experts query Russian air safety after German crash
July 2, 2002
By Bradley Perrett
LONDON (Reuters) - Western experts questioned the safety commitment of Russian airlines and pilots Tuesday after a Russian passenger jet collided with a cargo plane over Germany, killing more than 70 people.
The Russian crew's reported failure to respond to instructions seemed a fairly obvious cause for the collision of the Bashkirian Airlines plane and a freighter of cargo carrier DHL, the experts said, although they stressed that only a thorough investigation could determine why the aircraft crashed.
"The standard of piloting of the Russians is very good, but there seems to be a lack of a professional attitude to safety," retired crash investigator Macarthur Job told Reuters.
Swiss air-traffic control late Monday repeatedly told the pilot of the Russian Tupolev 154 to reduce altitude to avoid a collision with the DHL Boeing 757, a German official said.
By the time the Tu-154 began to descend, the 757 was also diving because its on-board collision-avoidance system had instructed its pilot to do so. So the planes hit each other.
Aviation safety analyst Chris Yates said Russian airlines had a poor crash record, which he said generally stemmed from failure to follow correct procedures, not from faulty planes.
The exact reason for the slow response by the Russian crew was a mystery Tuesday.
Austrian air-traffic controllers appeared to rule out language difficulties, saying the pilot of the Russian plane had spoken well while in Austrian air space.
"He spoke excellent English," said Peter Schmidt, spokesman for the Vienna controllers. "We had absolutely no problems."
Yates, aviation safety and security editor for technical publisher Jane's, said the Russian crew members may have tuned their radio to the wrong radio frequency when they passed between the German and Swiss traffic-control zones.
Or perhaps they were not monitoring their radio properly.
AN ACCIDENT THAT COULD NOT HAPPEN
Leonid Shcherbakov, chief of the air traffic department at Russia's State Civil Aviation Service, rejected suggestions that Russian pilots were sloppy.
"Our pilots fly all over the world and it would be unfair to say the Russian piloting school is no match for that of other countries," he told Reuters. The International Civil Aviation Organization had confirmed the quality of Russian pilots only last year, he added.
Another safety expert, David Learmount, wondered why the air traffic controller, failing to get a response from the Tu-154, had not contacted the 757 instead.
"You only have to turn one of them to avoid a collision," he said.
Besides, a collision should have been impossible, since the Tu-154 also had a collision-avoidance system, said Learmount, safety editor of industry weekly Flight International.
"This was the accident that could not happen," he said, noting that the weather was excellent and that traffic should have been moderate.
If the Russian plane's collision-avoidance gear had been working, as the 757's evidently was, then the two systems should have automatically contacted each other and coordinated new flight paths to prevent a crash.
Back to the Top Next Article
July 2, 2002:
#6333 #6334 #6335
- Back to the Top -