F900 / B772, en-route, near Kihnu Island Estonia, 2013

F900 / B772, en-route, near Kihnu Island Estonia, 2013

Summary

On 17 October 2013, a Falcon 900 climbing as cleared to FL 340 and being operated as a State Aircraft equipped with TCAS II v7.0 initially responded to a TCAS RA against crossing traffic at FL 350 in day VMC in the opposite direction to the one directed and prescribed separation was lost as a result. The Investigation concluded that the F900 crew had commenced a climb on receipt of a TCAS RA 'ADJUST VERTICAL SPEED' when a reduction in the 800 fpm rate of climb was required. Safety Recommendations were made in respect of TCAS RA requirements for State Aircraft.

Description

On 17 October 2013, a Falcon 900 being operated by the Italian Air Force on a flight from Tallinn to Rome Ciampino as IAM 3116 lost prescribed vertical separation in Class 'C' airspace in day VMC against a Boeing 777-200 being operated by British Airways on an international passenger flight from London Heathrow to Seoul Incheon as BAW 17. Both aircraft were working the same ATC frequency and on crossing tracks.

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by the Estonian Safety Investigation Bureau. It was noted that the State Aircraft involved "did not fall under the scope of Civil Accident Investigation Authorities neither in either Estonia or in Italy [but that] the Bureau had received full and valuable support from Italian Air Force Flight Safety Inspectorate" during the Investigation. Recorded ATC voice and radar data from the Estonian and Latvian ANSPs provided the primary evidence for the Investigation, the latter including Mode S downlink data which was analysed using the EUROCONTROL InCAS program, v 2.10 (see the output reproduced below).

The full content of this page is available to registered users only.
Please Log in or Register

SKYbrary Partners:

Safety knowledge contributed by: