Airliner and private jet in near-miss in London skies

A Boeing 777 almost collided with a business jet in the skies over London last summer.

Travel Insurance News - 09/09/2010

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A business jet came near to colliding with a Turkish civilian airliner after departing London City Airport, says a safety report. The report by Britain’s Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) refers to the incident, which occurred over London, as ‘serious’.

The private Citation 525 jet had departed from London City Airport, near central London. It was flying roughly 100-200 feet below and some 800 metres away from the Turkish Airlines passenger jet. The Turkish Airlines Boeing 777, which was carrying 232 people, was headed for Heathrow Airport. The incident happened on 27 July, 2009, at an altitude of 4,000 feet.

According to the recently-published report, the London City Airport control tower had given the business jet clearance to ascend to 3,000 feet. However, when the crew of the German-owned business jet acknowledged the tower’s instructions, they responded thjat they would be climbing to an altitude of 4,000 feet.

The response from the jet, called a ‘readback’ mistake, was missed by the controller at London City Airport, said the AAIB. At the same time, the Turkish passenger jet had been given clearance to descend to an altitude of 4,000 feet as it neared Heathrow. Had the incident taken place in bad weather and poor visibility, built-in collision avoidance systems would have been the only way to avoid a potential mid-air collision.

The safety investigation, however, found that the crew of the Turkish airliner ignored three warnings from their own on-board collision avoidance systems. Also, the Citation jet did not even have such a safety system, called TCAS II, fitted.

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