Blame on Russian TU-154 pilots

The pilots of Russian TU-154 are blamed for not following the instructions of the TCAS traffic collision avoidance system. It is said that the pilots were to have followed the system, not the Swiss air traffic officers, according to spokesmen for the German Pilot Trade Union reporting to the the Washington Post. “The automatic alarm signal is crucial for the crew, at the time when words from controllers are just recommendations.”

German pilots say that pilots must follow the automatic security system even if it contradicts recommendations given by air traffic controllers. This condition is according to international standards; it is the so-called principle of non-intervention in the automatic system's work (the principle is not applied when a pilot himself sees an approaching plane, but the automatic system does not react to it).

In this tragedy, the non-intervention principle was broken; however, the mistake committed by the Swiss air traffic controllers on the land was the most tragic. The Swiss controllers admit this fact, and any accusations against the Russian pilots are impossible in this case. In addition, it should have been taken into consideration that the Bashkirian Airlines flight was a chartered and not a regular one; according to statistics, the possibility of air crashes with such flights is much higher than with regular flights.

Sergey Yugov PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Maria Gousseva

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2002/07/09/43870.html