TU-154 pilots acted right

Vladimir Kofman, chairman of Russia’s Interstate Aviation Committee says, if Swiss air traffic official did not interfere, a catastrophe of TU-154 and Boeing-757 could have been averted. The collision would have been prevented due to TCAS, Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance system.

Vladimir Kofman said in an interview to Echo Moskvy radio, “It is more likely that the command to maneuver was given for the Boeing, TU-154 was recommended not to move. Interference of the air traffic official, who twice said to dive within a very short period of time, resulted in the collision. The official broke a principle of non-interference in the work of automatics.”

Results of investigations held by a special international group headed by German specialists are expected to shed light on details of the tragedy. In Kofman’s words, Germany is to develop a final version of the document and circulate it among other participants of the investigation who can study it within 60 days. It is not reported yet, when final report is to be ready. Russia’s Ministry of Transport supports Vladimir Kofman’s version that the TU-154 crew was rather not guilty of the tragedy. Russian Deputy Minister of Transport Vladimir Ruppel says, judging from information obtained from the “black boxes”, actions of the pilots were correct.

In any case, complete picture of the tragedy will be clear only when information provided by the “black boxes” is compared with “white boxes” that recorded air traffic officials’ commands on land.

As it became clear today, deciphering of the “black boxes” may take several weeks, as the tape was seriously damaged and needs repair. Experts are working on it now. Unfortunately, they say, great amount of information can be lost at that. The Boeing records suffered less.

Switzerland is expected to present copies of air traffic officials’ records to the investigation commission on Saturday.

Sergey Yugov PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Maria Gousseva

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2002/07/05/43758.html