We keep hearing such news almost daily that one vehicle collided with another on the road, causing the deaths of so many people. But we have rarely heard such news in which an airplane crashed into another airplane, causing a lot of damage. Today we will introduce you to one such incident in which two airplanes actually collided with each other at an altitude of 35000 feet and about 71 people were killed in this accident. So let's know how all this happened.
Date 1 July 2002, night time 8:10 minutes, a total of 60 passengers, including 45 schoolchildren, were waiting for the flight at Moscow's Domodedovo International Airport. These 45 Russian schoolchildren were from to the city of Ufa and were on a school trip organized by the local UNESCO committee to the Costa Dorada area of Spain. 38 minutes later at about 8:48 minutes, Flight 2937 (a Tupolev Tu-154 passenger jet) of Bashkirian Airlines with 60 passengers and nine crew members took off from Moscow, Russia, to Barcelona, Spain. The plane was ready to cover a distance of 3000 kilometers in 4 hours and 20 minutes. Around 11 pm the airplane entered the airspace in Switzerland. This airspace was being controlled by Skyguide, a private Swiss airspace control company. At 11 pm, Peter Nielsen was there in the control room with one of his companions as an air traffic controller. 1 July was a very busy day in terms of air traffic from morning to evening but after 11 pm at night, there was no landing schedule for any plane at any airport that existed in that entire airspace and the air traffic passing through that airspace was also reduced to a great extent. Therefore, Peter Nielsen's colleague gave responsibility for his workstation to Peter and went for a break. This was against the rules of Skyguide, but was a common practice over the years and was known and tolerated by management. That means, Peter was now handling the responsibility of two workstations simultaneously, where airspace traffic was being shown on the first radar system, and the planes landing at the airport on the second radar system were being monitored.
On the other hand, at 11:06 pm, a DHL Flight 611 (a Boeing 757 cargo jet) departed from Bergamo, Italy, to Brussels, Belgium. At around 11:10, Peter Nielsen was informed that his main radar image processing system has been shut down for maintenance, so now he will have to use the fallback system. At 11:21 pm DHL Flight 611 entered Peter Nielsen's air space and the plane's pilot approached peter and asked for permission to fly at 36000 feet of altitude. Before giving permission, peter regulated the air traffic and started doing a normal calculation that there is no other plane on this altitude and the same route. But then a message from a delayed Aero Lloyd flight 1135 came on the second radar system that they have to land at a nearby airport, so peter had to switch from his ongoing task and moved to the second radar system. Peter tried to contact the nearby airport tower but his phone was unable to work due to the maintenance program at the workstation. Therefore, he returned to the first radar system because right now flight 1135 had ten minutes to land. After coming to the first radar system, peter approved DHL Flight 611's request for flying at an altitude of 36000 feet and then again tried to make contact with the nearby airport tower for the landing of flight 1135.
Two Planes Collide In Mid-Air (Accident)
Date 1 July 2002, night time 8:10 minutes, a total of 60 passengers, including 45 schoolchildren, were waiting for the flight at Moscow's Domodedovo International Airport. These 45 Russian schoolchildren were from to the city of Ufa and were on a school trip organized by the local UNESCO committee to the Costa Dorada area of Spain. 38 minutes later at about 8:48 minutes, Flight 2937 (a Tupolev Tu-154 passenger jet) of Bashkirian Airlines with 60 passengers and nine crew members took off from Moscow, Russia, to Barcelona, Spain. The plane was ready to cover a distance of 3000 kilometers in 4 hours and 20 minutes. Around 11 pm the airplane entered the airspace in Switzerland. This airspace was being controlled by Skyguide, a private Swiss airspace control company. At 11 pm, Peter Nielsen was there in the control room with one of his companions as an air traffic controller. 1 July was a very busy day in terms of air traffic from morning to evening but after 11 pm at night, there was no landing schedule for any plane at any airport that existed in that entire airspace and the air traffic passing through that airspace was also reduced to a great extent. Therefore, Peter Nielsen's colleague gave responsibility for his workstation to Peter and went for a break. This was against the rules of Skyguide, but was a common practice over the years and was known and tolerated by management. That means, Peter was now handling the responsibility of two workstations simultaneously, where airspace traffic was being shown on the first radar system, and the planes landing at the airport on the second radar system were being monitored.
On the other hand, at 11:06 pm, a DHL Flight 611 (a Boeing 757 cargo jet) departed from Bergamo, Italy, to Brussels, Belgium. At around 11:10, Peter Nielsen was informed that his main radar image processing system has been shut down for maintenance, so now he will have to use the fallback system. At 11:21 pm DHL Flight 611 entered Peter Nielsen's air space and the plane's pilot approached peter and asked for permission to fly at 36000 feet of altitude. Before giving permission, peter regulated the air traffic and started doing a normal calculation that there is no other plane on this altitude and the same route. But then a message from a delayed Aero Lloyd flight 1135 came on the second radar system that they have to land at a nearby airport, so peter had to switch from his ongoing task and moved to the second radar system. Peter tried to contact the nearby airport tower but his phone was unable to work due to the maintenance program at the workstation. Therefore, he returned to the first radar system because right now flight 1135 had ten minutes to land. After coming to the first radar system, peter approved DHL Flight 611's request for flying at an altitude of 36000 feet and then again tried to make contact with the nearby airport tower for the landing of flight 1135.
After being approved for high altitude, DHL Flight 611 has now raised its altitude to 36000 feet. On the other hand, Flight 2937, which was going to Barcelona, was also flying at an altitude of 36000 feet, that is, two minutes before the accident, both planes were a few kilometers away from each other at the same altitude and were coming close to each other at a very high speed. The problem here was that the air route of both airplanes was crossing, that is, according to the speed with which both planes were flying, the two planes could collide with each other above Uberlingen, a southern German town on Lake Constance, near the Swiss border. About 45 seconds before the accident, the air traffic controller, Peter Nielsen, realized the seriousness of the situation and immediately contacted Flight 2937 and asked the pilot to perform the descend immediately. Peter instructed Russian pilots to immediately bring their plane's flight level to descend from 360 (11,000 meters (36,000 ft)) to 350. But after a second of this instruction, the flight traffic collision avoidance system (TCAS) of Flight 2937 rang with the sound of the beep and instructed the pilots to immediately raise the altitude of the plane. At the same time, the TCAS of DHL Flight 611 also started warning the pilots with the sound of the beep and directed to descend the altitude of the flight immediately. Therefore, the pilots of DHL Flight 611 started descending the flight level as per TCAS instructions.
But on the other hand, the pilots of Flight 2937 became confused about whether to obey the instructions of the air traffic controller, Peter Nielsen or follow the instructions of TCAS. Then Peter Nielsen repeated his point again and instructed the Flight 2937 pilot to descend the flight level. Finally, the Russian pilots decided to obey the air traffic controller instructions and started to lower the altitude of the plane. It means, at this time both the planes were on the descend and were coming down very fast. But this decision was completely opposite to TCAS instruction of Flight 2937. Meanwhile, in the air traffic control room, when Peter Nielsen saw that Flight 2937 had followed his instructions and lowered the flight level, he became relaxed that everything had gone well. At this time Peter was unaware that DHL Flight 611 had also lowered its flight level because due to Peter's continued contact with Flight 2937, DHL Flight 611 pilots were unable to make contact with Peter, due to which they could not able to tell him, they too have lowered their flight level. At the same time, due to under maintenance of the main radar system, peter was using the fallback system, which did not have a necessary emergency feature Short-term conflict alert (STCA) which in case of such a situation, shows a visual alert on the radar display. Because of this, Peter Nielsen could not understand the real situation and started to contact flight 1135 that is going to land at the nearby airport.
About 19 seconds before Collision, Peter once again contacted Flight 2937 pilot and told him that DHL Flight 611 was coming from his right side, while DHL Flight 611 was actually coming from their left side. That is why when Flight 2937 pilots looked from their window to the right side, they did not see any plane coming anywhere. But eight seconds before the collision, when the crew of Flight 2937 suddenly looked to the left of their airplane, they saw DHL Flight 611 coming from the left side, and then the pilot immediately increased its plane's descent rate. But just two seconds before the collision, Flight 2937 pilots finally followed the TCAS instruction of the plane and attempted to put the aircraft into a climb. But it was impossible for the pilot to put the aircraft in a sudden climb in just two to three seconds that was steadily going down and that's why two seconds later at 23:35:32, at an altitude of 34,890 feet, DHL Flight 611 collided with Flight 2937 at almost a right angle, over Uberlingen, Germany. With DHL Flight 611's vertical stabilizer slicing completely through Flight 2937's fuselage just ahead of its wings, causing it to split into several pieces, and spreading debris over a wide area.
The front section of the plane directly hit the ground vertically, while the rear section spins in the air and fell on the ground after a few seconds. The collision was so terrible that all the 60 passengers (including 45 children) and 9 crew members of Flight 2937 were killed. On the other side, DHL Flight 611 was also severely damaged due to the collision. The vertical stabilizer of DHL Flight 611 was 80% broken, due to which the plane was uncontrolled in the air. After struggling for some time, DHL Flight crashed into a wooded area close to the village of Taisersdorf, 7 kilometers away from the accident location, causing the plane's tail section to ripped from the fuselage by trees just before impact. A total of 71 people died in this horrible accident, 69 people on Flight 2937, and the 2 on DHL Flight 611.
It could be said that if both airplane pilots followed those TCAS automated instructions rather than Air Traffic Controller Peter Nielsen's instructions, the collision would not have occurred. Aero Lloyd's Flight 1135 can also be considered another reason for this mid-air collision, forcing Peter Nielsen to switch continuously from Flight 1135 to Flight 2937 and DHL Flight 611. But the biggest reason was that the other controller was on break during his duty and the maintenance work that was being carried out on the main radar image processing system forced peter to use a fallback system.
The front section of the plane directly hit the ground vertically, while the rear section spins in the air and fell on the ground after a few seconds. The collision was so terrible that all the 60 passengers (including 45 children) and 9 crew members of Flight 2937 were killed. On the other side, DHL Flight 611 was also severely damaged due to the collision. The vertical stabilizer of DHL Flight 611 was 80% broken, due to which the plane was uncontrolled in the air. After struggling for some time, DHL Flight crashed into a wooded area close to the village of Taisersdorf, 7 kilometers away from the accident location, causing the plane's tail section to ripped from the fuselage by trees just before impact. A total of 71 people died in this horrible accident, 69 people on Flight 2937, and the 2 on DHL Flight 611.
It could be said that if both airplane pilots followed those TCAS automated instructions rather than Air Traffic Controller Peter Nielsen's instructions, the collision would not have occurred. Aero Lloyd's Flight 1135 can also be considered another reason for this mid-air collision, forcing Peter Nielsen to switch continuously from Flight 1135 to Flight 2937 and DHL Flight 611. But the biggest reason was that the other controller was on break during his duty and the maintenance work that was being carried out on the main radar image processing system forced peter to use a fallback system.
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