EgyptAir A300 Cargo ignores ATC instructions and causes near collision with Air France A320 above Ghent

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Passenger
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EgyptAir A300 Cargo ignores ATC instructions and causes near collision with Air France A320 above Ghent

Post by Passenger »

An Egypt Air Airbus A300-600 freighter from Ostend to Cairo was cleared to climb to FL210 out of Ostend.

An Air France Airbus A320-200 from Paris Charles de Gaulle to Amsterdam, was enroute at FL220 on a converging trajectory.

The instruction to climb to FL210 was re-issued to MSX-541 about 5 minutes before the trajectories were about to cross and was read back correctly again. Two minutes prior to the crossing point ATC instructed MSX-541 to maintain FL210 and provided traffic information of the crossing A320 above.

MSX-541 however continued the climb above FL210, both aircraft received TCAS resolution advisories, AF-1640 was instructed to climb and complied, MSX-541 however continued their climb opposed to the TCAS RA.

Continues here:
http://avherald.com/h?article=4a36eb54&opt=0
Last edited by Passenger on 16 Jan 2017, 20:59, edited 1 time in total.


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luchtzak
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Re: EgyptAir A300 Cargo ignores ATC instructions and causes near collision with Air France A320 above Ghent/Gent/Gand

Post by luchtzak »

300 feet that is 91 meters, that is close in aviation terms!

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sn26567
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Re: EgyptAir A300 Cargo ignores ATC instructions and causes near collision with Air France A320 above Ghent/Gent/Gand

Post by sn26567 »

FL220 is not very high as a cruising altitude for a passenger flight. Is that common?
André
ex Sabena #26567

JAF737

Re: EgyptAir A300 Cargo ignores ATC instructions and causes near collision with Air France A320 above Ghent/Gent/Gand

Post by JAF737 »

sn26567 wrote: 13 Jan 2017, 21:38 FL220 is not very high as a cruising altitude for a passenger flight. Is that common?
It was a CDG-AMS flight. So yes, it's common.

Boeing767copilot
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Re: EgyptAir A300 Cargo ignores ATC instructions and causes near collision with Air France A320 above Ghent/Gent/Gand

Post by Boeing767copilot »

sn26567 wrote: 13 Jan 2017, 21:38 FL220 is not very high as a cruising altitude for a passenger flight. Is that common?
AF A320 was decending to AMS

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luchtzak
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Re: EgyptAir A300 Cargo ignores ATC instructions and causes near collision with Air France A320 above Ghent/Gent/Gand

Post by luchtzak »

sn26567 wrote: 13 Jan 2017, 21:38 FL220 is not very high as a cruising altitude for a passenger flight. Is that common?
Between Paris and Amsterdam that might be the optimal flightlevel.

Passenger
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Re: EgyptAir A300 Cargo ignores ATC instructions and causes near collision with Air France A320 above Ghent/Gent/Gand

Post by Passenger »

luchtzak wrote: 13 Jan 2017, 21:44
sn26567 wrote: 13 Jan 2017, 21:38 FL220 is not very high as a cruising altitude for a passenger flight. Is that common?
Between Paris and Amsterdam that might be the optimal flightlevel.
Indeed: on Sunday, AF-1640 is a A320, and last Sunday AF-1640 was also max FL220. On weekdays it's a A318, and then it's sometimes FL240.
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/af1640#

PttU
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Re: EgyptAir A300 Cargo ignores ATC instructions and causes near collision with Air France A320 above Ghent/Gent/Gand

Post by PttU »

luchtzak wrote: 13 Jan 2017, 21:30 Also reported on Luchtzak's main page

https://www.aviation24.be/miscellaneous/in ... iss-ghent/
Thanks, especially for explaining the specific language and abbreviations ;)
MSX541 was instructed to climb to FL210 about 5 minutes before the trajectories were about to cross and was read back correctly again.
"reading back" means they confirmed the message they received to the ATC? So they clearly received and understood the message but still didn't take action?

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luchtzak
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Re: EgyptAir A300 Cargo ignores ATC instructions and causes near collision with Air France A320 above Ghent/Gent/Gand

Post by luchtzak »

PttU wrote: 13 Jan 2017, 22:05
luchtzak wrote: 13 Jan 2017, 21:30 Also reported on Luchtzak's main page

https://www.aviation24.be/miscellaneous/in ... iss-ghent/
Thanks, especially for explaining the specific language and abbreviations ;)
MSX541 was instructed to climb to FL210 about 5 minutes before the trajectories were about to cross and was read back correctly again.
"reading back" means they confirmed the message they received to the ATC? So they clearly received and understood the message but still didn't take action?
Indeed, according to the report they copied the atc-instruction yet they continued to climb higher than ordered.

Nevihta
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Re: EgyptAir A300 Cargo ignores ATC instructions and causes near collision with Air France A320 above Ghent/Gent/Gand

Post by Nevihta »

luchtzak wrote: 13 Jan 2017, 21:44
sn26567 wrote: 13 Jan 2017, 21:38 FL220 is not very high as a cruising altitude for a passenger flight. Is that common?
Between Paris and Amsterdam that might be the optimal flightlevel.
Flight known as "city pairs" (typically CDG-AMS) do not cruise above FL240 to avoid Eurocontrol airspace.
Below FL 240 Belgocontrol is in charge, above, it's Eurocontrol.

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luchtzak
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Re: EgyptAir A300 Cargo ignores ATC instructions and causes near collision with Air France A320 above Ghent/Gent/Gand

Post by luchtzak »

luchtzak wrote: 13 Jan 2017, 21:34 300 feet that is 91 meters, that is close in aviation terms!
I made an error in the separation between both aircraft, not 91 meters but 1372 meters.

Sadly this 91 meters has been picked up on De Redactie VRT ...

http://m.deredactie.be/#!/snippet/58795 ... 7110d02578

Maybe they could have mentioned a link back to luchtzak.be or to the original source avherald.com ...

Also http://m.hln.be/hln/m/nl/957/Binnenland ... onItemId=1


Homo Aeroportus
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Re: EgyptAir A300 Cargo ignores ATC instructions and causes near collision with Air France A320 above Ghent/Gent/Gand

Post by Homo Aeroportus »

luchtzak wrote: 14 Jan 2017, 05:50
luchtzak wrote: 13 Jan 2017, 21:34 300 feet that is 91 meters, that is close in aviation terms!
I made an error in the separation between both aircraft, not 91 meters but 1372 meters.

Sadly this 91 meters has been picked up on De Redactie VRT ...

http://m.deredactie.be/#!/snippet/58795 ... 7110d02578

Maybe they could have mentioned a link back to luchtzak.be or to the original source avherald.com ...

Also http://m.hln.be/hln/m/nl/957/Binnenland ... onItemId=1
Your initial conversion was correct Bart.
300 feet x 0.3048 = 91.44 metres.

And as I have the feeling that the "300" feet may have been rounded more coarsely than to the nearest one tenth of a foot, I would even take "90" or "100" metres as correct information.

I'd like to remind our metrically-challenged friends, usually also criticizing countries stating altitudes in metres, that the "foot" is 1/3 of a yard which has been scientifically (not) "defined" as being the distance between the nose and the outstretched thumb of a king who has died 10 centuries ago...
:lol:

Disclaimer : being "too young to die, to old to rock and roll", I have no hope nor intention to change the aviation industry and go metric all the way.

H.A.

Lenoest
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Re: EgyptAir A300 Cargo ignores ATC instructions and causes near collision with Air France A320 above Ghent/Gent/Gand

Post by Lenoest »

Well well well... Flight crew repeatedly not respecting ATC instruction, and ignoring TCAS alerts. I am impatient to read their version of the story.

PttU
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Re: EgyptAir A300 Cargo ignores ATC instructions and causes near collision with Air France A320 above Ghent/Gent/Gand

Post by PttU »

Homo Aeroportus wrote: 14 Jan 2017, 08:00 Your initial conversion was correct Bart.
300 feet x 0.3048 = 91.44 metres.
AVHerald wrote:Belgium's AAIU reported that the separation between the two aircraft reduced to 300 feet vertical and 0.74nm horizontal.
The aircraft wheren't straight above eachother, so you'll have to throw some Pythagoras into the equation 8-)
91 metres vertical and 1370 metres horizontal makes about 1373 metres diagonal.

JAF737

Re: EgyptAir A300 Cargo ignores ATC instructions and causes near collision with Air France A320 above Ghent/Gent/Gand

Post by JAF737 »

I suppose they selected a wrong altitude on the MCP (autopilot) and nobody picked up/corrected the mistake.

telspace2005
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Re: EgyptAir A300 Cargo ignores ATC instructions and causes near collision with Air France A320 above Ghent

Post by telspace2005 »

Quote from previous post:

Flight known as "city pairs" (typically CDG-AMS) do not cruise above FL240 to avoid Eurocontrol airspace.
Below FL 240 Belgocontrol is in charge, above, it's Eurocontrol.

Can someone explains why Eurocontrol airspace is to be avoid ?

Thank you.

Hue

Re: EgyptAir A300 Cargo ignores ATC instructions and causes near collision with Air France A320 above Ghent

Post by Hue »

telspace2005 wrote: 14 Jan 2017, 15:07Can someone explains why Eurocontrol airspace is to be avoided ?
To avoid extra coordinations and to simplify traffic streams & responsability in very complex airspace, a small number of short flights are kept below FL245 over Belgium.


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