‘Still climbing’: Wild near-miss collision
Two aircraft can be seen coming incredibly close to smashing into one another after one plane unexpectedly started climbing without clearance.
A Chinese passenger plane’s unexpected manoeuvre over Russian airspace put it on a potential collision course with another Chinese carrier earlier this month.
Startling audio recordings that surfaced over the weekend on Chinese social media captured the confusion in the sky when the Air China Airbus A350 suddenly began climbing from 34,100ft to 36,000ft without clearance from Russian air traffic control.
The move placed it on a near-collision course with an SF Airlines cargo plane flying at 35,000ft, according to South China Morning Post.
The aircraft were flying over Tuva, a remote part of Siberia that borders Mongolia, on July 7 when they came within 300-400 feet (around 90-120 metres) of each other - much closer than the global minimum standard for vertical separation of 1000 feet (about 305 metres).
The passenger plane – flight CA96 – was on its way from Shanghai to Milan, while the Boeing cargo plane was flying from Budapest to Ezhou, a city in the central province of Hubei.
It was when the pilot of the cargo plane spotted the potential collision that he put in a request for more information from air traffic control, which confirmed there was an Airbus A350 in front of the plane.
“I saw your plane climbing. Did (air traffic control) instruct you to?” the cargo pilot allegedly asked the pilot of the A350, according to South China Morning Post.
“I saw that there was a plane ahead and it was only 20 nautical miles (37km) away and still climbing. Such a crossing altitude is very inappropriate. I guess you also heard me saying ‘request traffic information’.”
The publication reported the Air China pilot appeared to blame the female Russian air traffic controller for the incident, saying “the girl” was “making a fuss” and had left everyone “confused”.
He later said “we couldn’t explain it clearly to them” and “didn’t know how to tell them”.
The pilot added: “I assume we’ll have to write a report on this kind of incident when we get back.”
His SF Airlines counterpart replied: “Definitely, without a doubt. I have to report home (to the company) right away.”
It comes as the near-miss triggered an alarm known as Traffic Collision Avoidance System on both planes, prompting the Air China pilot to ask air traffic control what had caused this to happen.
“Are you climbing with instruction or without instruction? Confirm, please,” the controller asked the Air China pilot.
“No. Thank you,” the pilot reportedly responded.
According to the outlet, two other planes – another Air China flight, CA861 travelling from Beijing to Geneva, and Hainan Airlines HU7937, flying between Beijing and Prague – were flying to the northwest of the pair involved in the incident.
Air traffic control asked the Geneva-bound flight and the Hainan Airlines plane to maintain their current altitudes – flight level 360 (or 36,000 feet) and level 340 respectively.
What exactly prompted the sudden ascent is not yet known but one possibility is the overlapping transmissions.