T154 / B752, en-route, Uberlingen Germany, 2002

T154 / B752, en-route, Uberlingen Germany, 2002

Summary

On 1st July 2002, a Russian-operated Tu154 on a passenger flight collided at night with a cargo Boeing 757-200 over Überlingen, Germany with the consequent loss of control of both aircraft and the death of all occupants. The collision occurred after an ATC control lapse had led to a conflict which generated coordinated TCAS RAs which the B757 followed but the TU-154, in the presence of a conflicting ATC instruction, did not.

Description

On 1 July 2002, a Boeing 757-200 being operated by DHL on a cargo flight from Bergamo to Brussels and a Tupolev Tu154M being operated by Bashkirian Airlines on a non scheduled passenger flight from Moscow Domodedovo to Barcelona were destroyed whilst en route by a mid air collision over southern Germany near Überlingen at night in Visual Meteorological Conditions (VMC). All 71 occupants of the two aircraft were killed.

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by the German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Investigation, the Bundesstelle für Flugunfalluntersuchung (Germany) (BFU). Recorded data was recovered from the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) and Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) of both aircraft and also from the Non Volatile Memory of the Airborne Collision Avoidance System (ACAS) Unit of the Tu154 only. ATC radar and R/T recordings were also available. A reconstruction of the flight paths of the two aircraft prior to their collision was made and is superimposed on a chart of the area in the illustration below:

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