Passenger jets in near-miss over London

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Passenger jets in near-miss over London

BY CLARE STERLING

TWO passenger jets were within seconds of a mid-air collision above Central London when an intervention by an air traffic controller averted disaster. The aircraft, carrying 700 people, were just 600ft apart and about ten seconds from disaster when the alarm was raised.

The collision course had not been spotted by air traffic controllers at West Drayton. Intervention came only after a computer-activated collision course "conflict alarm" alerted them to the danger.

The United Airlines jet and Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 were flying above Westminster on their final approach to Heathrow in the early hours of Sunday, August 20.

An air traffic controller instructed the pilot of United flight 998 from Boston: "Take urgent avoiding action now! Turn on to a heading of 270 degrees to avoid airliner."

The captain of the United Boeing 777, carrying 278 passengers and 14 crew, calmly replied: "Understood. Immediate action taken. I have got the other aircraft beneath me in my sight."

When the danger had passed, the air traffic controller told the United pilot that the Virgin aircraft was "going 600ft underneath you". Virgin Flight 22, from Washington, was carrying 400 passengers and 15 crew.

Both jets, flying at about 300mph, were descending towards Heathrow at different angles but could have collided within moments had the emergency diversion warning not been aired.

A pilot who listened in on the exchange between the controller and the pilot said: "It was a computer conflict alarm that saved the day and prevented what could have been the worst air disaster in Britain. Can you imagine the devastation if these jets had come down in the Westminster region - on the Houses of Parliament? The scare highlights the all-too-heavy workload of controllers."

A Civil Aviation Authority spokesman said that a radar reading suggested the aircraft were 2= nautical miles apart horizontally. Industry guidelines say that aircraft should be a minimum of four nautical miles apart. The spokesman said: "The incident has been fully investigated and it has been concluded that the safety of the aircraft was not compromised."

United Airlines confirmed that there was an incident. "The situation has been investigated and is now closed." A Virgin Atlantic spokesman said: "These incidents are not uncommon in the stacking system for aircraft waiting for permission to land at Heathrow." http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/2000/09/04/timnwsnws02050.html

-- Doris (reaper1@mindspring.com), September 04, 2000


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