TAP A320 over Belgium, intercepted losscomm

[Boeing767copilot]

A TAP Air Portugal Airbus A320-200, registration CS-TMW performing flight TP-504 from Lisbon (Portugal) to Copenhagen (Denmark) with 147 passengers and 7 crew, was enroute at FL360, when the airplane passed west of Paris and via Lille (France) into Belgium, but did not establish radio contact with Belgium's Air Traffic Control for a considerable time.

read full story on:

http://avherald.com/h?article=4216f52c&opt=0

[Propwash]

Don't Worrry, Be

The Top Guns need their practice, the politicians want to cover their a****, and the taxpayer pays the bill.

[NCB]

35 minutes, and a failure of all comms including ACARS and transponder?
Smells fishy... they probably fell asleep.

Probably proves a point with regards to crew rostering and rest times?

[LX-LGX]

35 minutes, and a failure of all comms including ACARS and transponder?
Smells fishy... they probably fell asleep.

Probably proves a point with regards to crew rostering and rest times?

TP504 leaves Lisbon at 09h10 and arrives in Copenhagen at 14h10.

"Crew rostering and rest times"?

[teddybAIR]

35 minutes, and a failure of all comms including ACARS and transponder?
Smells fishy... they probably fell asleep.

Probably proves a point with regards to crew rostering and rest times?

TP504 leaves Lisbon at 09h10 and arrives in Copenhagen at 14h10.

"Crew rostering and rest times"?

Did the possibility ever occur to you that this might not be their only sector of the day, but one out of three?

[LX-LGX]

35 minutes, and a failure of all comms including ACARS and transponder?
Smells fishy... they probably fell asleep.

Probably proves a point with regards to crew rostering and rest times?

TP504 leaves Lisbon at 09h10 and arrives in Copenhagen at 14h10.

"Crew rostering and rest times"?

Did the possibility ever occur to you that this might not be their only sector of the day, but one out of three?

Yes. But I thaught it was very unlikely, as the return flight TP505 leaves CPN 45 minutes after arrival, at 14h55 (15h05 on Sat). And because the second daily LIS-CPN, which is TP502, 17h15-22h00, is already staying at CPN during the night (to do the 08h30 TP503 CPN-LIS). If the flight involved in this incident would be the crew's last leg, it would mean that TAP is having 2 crews staying over in expensive Copenhagen: crew from 504 (arr at 14h10) and crew from 502 (arr at 22h00). Doesn't make sense to me.

So for me, it was a technical failure. Untill somebody else said "crew probably fell asleep". Hence my reply that OPS probably isn't to blame for making a too tight schedule.

[Propwash]

Unless you're a Flying computer/software scientist, these days it's 'almost' impossible to play Ping Pong on the EFIS

Most probable cause:
Fingertrouble (comm set Active <---> Standby) and(or) book/magazine on ACARS printer etc.

[NCB]

Yes. But I thaught it was very unlikely, as the return flight TP505 leaves CPN 45 minutes after arrival, at 14h55 (15h05 on Sat). And because the second daily LIS-CPN, which is TP502, 17h15-22h00, is already staying at CPN during the night (to do the 08h30 TP503 CPN-LIS). If the flight involved in this incident would be the crew's last leg, it would mean that TAP is having 2 crews staying over in expensive Copenhagen: crew from 504 (arr at 14h10) and crew from 502 (arr at 22h00). Doesn't make sense to me.

Let me follow logic reasoning, LX

Crew didn't establish contact with ATC for 35 minutes.
Maybe they pushed the wrong buttons on the comms, but then everytime you establish contact, you expect a reply. If you don't get one or not the correct one, you suppose that either your outbound calls are not received by ATC or you are not receiving inbound calls. Basically, there is a communication failure.
What do you do? You are either stupid and looking for a solution during 35 minutes or you are normal and squawk 7600, proceed according to procedures.
The mere fact that that did not happen is already determining except if there was a complete failure of all communication systems... including transponders...which is of course a possibility, but rather slim since all systems are pretty much self-dependent and duplicated and the only way they could be affected at the same time (including satcom if equipped, probably so) is by failure of common electrical supply (in which case other users would have been affected anyway and master cautions would be calling for attention) combined with non-standard radio selection procedures. But in that case it wouldn't explain how they were able to reestablish communication afterwards, and surprisingly only little after they were intercepted.

I think that the "both fell asleep" theory is alot more reassuring than the idea that they didn't know how to operate the radio and that they did not reach out for comms failure procedures, or that they took 35 minutes to figure it out.
It probably took for some gasping passengers looking at the F-4's, followed by door-banging cabin crew for cockpit crew to realise that they were at the office.

Crew rostering and resting times is a huge factor in avoiding such incidents.
Flying as a pilot has nothing to do with 9 to 5 jobs. One time you have to wake-up at 3 am, the next day you start at 5pm and finish after midnight. There's time you waist in briefing rooms and training classes and in the car.
Then it's not 5-on/2-off but more like 10-on/3 or 4-off with standby's as some of our friends here will confirm. Why? Because airlines can't afford to hire 30 pilots to operate one aircraft full time, which is understandable. That's also why most airlines know and unofficially accept that one pilot takes a short nap at cruise/low workload periods as long as he is strapped in his chair and that the nap is not too long in duration, with the other pilot in full control of the aircraft. Of course, if anything happens because of that they would be the first to point the fingers at them...
And of course, you wouldn't do it on a 50 minutes flight, but LIS-CPH might be worth a short sweet drreeamm zzzzz...

[LX-LGX]

Another losscomm incident yesterday : a Northwest A320 from San Diego to Minneapolis. No radio contact for 80 minutes.

More details:
http://avherald.com/h?article=4219f00f

[BerendBotje]

Kliksie for audio with Eurocontrol on 134.705 and calls on 121.500. Silences have been killed in the clip. TAP500L and TAP504

[Nevihta]

Eurocontrol is in charge of FL360 over Belgium, not Belgocontrol.