wannabepilot

AURORA, Ill. — A cockpit safety device is credited with helping pilots avoid a mid-air collision at 25,000 feet over Indiana.
According to a preliminary investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration, the planes came within seconds of colliding because of an error by an air traffic controller.
FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory says the Tuesday evening incident happened amid a shift change during a busy time at the Chicago Center radar facility in Aurora.
Officials say that controller directed a Midwest Airlines plane flying east from Milwaukee into the path of a United Express jet heading west out of Greensboro, North Carolina.
The collision-avoidance device in the Midwest plane went off in the Fort Wayne area, and an airline spokeswoman says the pilots executed an emergency climb to get out of the way.


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,311867,00.html

Planespotta

Excellent job by the pilots, and time for some controller(s) to go through training again . . .

mike734

A nice victory for TCAS. It will be interesting to see if the controllers were overworked or tired.

Outlaw2097

If? There is an if to that statement?

Stormy Knight

The fact that this happens so seldom says volumes: lets face it, the guys and gals in the radar room are mostly terrific professionals. That said, with RVSM and the traffic volumes out there, when the TCAS barks, you'd better be responding!

DamonMeyer

I guess it sure pays to listen!

OldAg84

How does TCAS work technically? Also, how much does it cost per A/C?

I've always thought (from a non-pilot perspective) that it's really a great safety tool.

FlyerJosh

Simply put, TCAS uses a directional antenna that interrogates other aircraft in the vicinity. Each aircraft when interrogated (either by radar or other aircraft) will send out a signal, that allows other TCAS units to determine rough position and altitude (mode C).

TCAS II units (an upgraded version of TCAS) can then take this information and derive coordinated "escape" maneuvers that give instructions on both aircraft.

The units vary in cost, but come as "standard equipment" these days since they are required by regulation for a very large segment of aviation. I know when we sent our TCAS box back for repair work, the repairs were in the range of 10K. (Nothing in aviation is cheap...)

I'll try to dig up the online training for TCAS which has some good videos on how it works and post them here later.

~J

Clue32

TCAS II is a fantastic tool. However, when pilots fail to follow the RA (Resolution Advisories) Climbs and Decents serious problems can arise. Eurocontrol has put out newsletters talking about several incidents, with both correct and incorrect pilot responses. There have been several near misses and the proximity is very scary.

The biggest threat is when ATC gives instructions for one aircraft which contradicts TCAS II directions and the pilot does what ATC says. The worst example would be the mid-air over Switzerland with a DHL airplane and a Russian airliner in which (correct me if I am wrong) the Russian airliner followed the directions from the Swiss controller which was oppisote to what the TCAS told them to do.

I have had two RA's in the past four years, both climb commands. One was due to VFR traffic while on vectors to the ILS into Stuttgart, GE. The controllers were very disturbed by the event and appologized to us. The second event involved an Airbus climbing to level 1000 feet below us over Austria. He was coming up so quickly, however, that we got the climb command and shot up to the next Flight Level. Wien radar was upset that we climbed and scolded us for doing so, but he didn't know if the Airbus crew had mis-set their altitude pre-select, or if the AP would fail, or if the crew was hand flying and distracted, or if they had mis-set their altimeter.

Lesson here: Do what the TCAS says to do regardless of what ATC says.

Ewfflyer

RA's also are exempt from enforcement action, because that trumps anything a controller has told you to do if I remember right.