Wednesday 30 December 2009

Israel Matzav: El Al, Air France jets nearly crash in midair

El Al, Air France jets nearly crash in midair

Now this is frightening.

Israel's Channel 2 television reported on Tuesday that a New York-bound El Al passenger jet came within 300 meters of an Air France passenger jet over the skies of Belgrade (Serbia) on Monday night.

According to the report, the Serbian air controller made a mistake and instructed the Air France airplane to fly on a route already used by the El Al plane, so that the jets were on a collision course.

The two planes were about to crash in midair, but emergency alarms alerted both pilots and the El-Al plane changed course at the last minute, when the distance between the aircraft was only 300 meters.

Serbian authorities reportedly claimed that the Serbian air controller was responsible for the incident and aviation authorities there launched an investigation into the near-accident.

Give the El Al pilot a medal. Wow.

Israel Matzav: El Al, Air France jets nearly crash in midair

1 comment:

Unknown said...

The Civil Aviation Directorate of the Republic of Serbia said in a statement in Belgrade on Wednesday that a transgression of separation norms occurred in Serbia's air space between French aircraft A318 AFR286J, on route from Paris to Sofia, and Israeli plane Boeing 777, ELY007, on route from Tel Aviv to New York.

After going over the audio and video recordings of the event, the Directorate concluded that the French plane crew did not honor the instructions given by the air traffic control and was the sole cause of the breaking of separation norms between the two aircraft, the statement said.

The crew of the French plane even correctly repeated the given instructions to bring the plane down to 35,000 feet (10,650 meters), but for unknown reasons the plane continued its descent even after reaching the approved height, said the Directorate.

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