REPORTS that two airliners came within 50 seconds of colliding over Kornos on Monday were criticised by Communications and Works Minister Averoff Neophytou yesterday.
According to Politis newspaper, the incident involved a Cyprus Airways Airbus A320 (Flight 205 from Warsaw) with 138 passengers on board and a British Airways Boeing 757 (Flight 663 to London Heathrow, with 180 passengers).
The BA flight had just left Larnaca Airport and was on a collision course with the CY jet when disaster was averted by the quick action of Nicosia Air Traffic Control, the paper said. Monday afternoon’s incident left the two planes within 50 seconds and six miles of colliding, Politis added.
The paper said the blunder should have been spotted by the control tower at Larnaca, but said that despite having top-of-the-range radar equipment, staff there have not been trained to use it because of internal labour disputes on training and promotions.
Neophytou denied that a near-miss had occurred. He said that the BA pilot went briefly off course, but that even if he had ignored instructions from Nicosia to resume the correct course no collision would have taken place.
Yesterday morning he and the Civil Aviation Department reviewed the entire incident, examining video tapes, voice recordings and other data.
“Even without adjusting his course, at the alleged point of collision the vertical distance between the two planes would have been 1,000 feet and the (horizontal) separation would have been three kilometres,” Neophytou said.
A spokesman for British Airways in Nicosia said none of its aircraft was involved in anything like a near-miss over Cyprus on Monday.
“We can confirm that the captain of flight BA663 from Larnaca to London on July 8 went slightly off course after take-off for less than 20 seconds,” the spokesman said. “He was alerted by air traffic control and took corrective action immediately. During the incident the flight passed another aircraft coming in to land. This is not regarded as a near miss and the TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System) did not activate on either flight. Our pilot filed a report which will be investigated.”
All modern aircraft are fitted with TCAS, which gives pilots around 48 seconds to take corrective action if the alarm sounds.
Defending the allegation that Larnaca didn’t spot the BA pilot’s mistake, Neophytou said the important thing was that Air Traffic Control did — and alerted the captain accordingly.
“We have a very modern system and experienced controllers,” he said. “This was a case of congratulating the controllers, not blaming them and the system. What’s the difference who spotted the mistake? The system and the good controllers noticed the fault of the pilot and gave instructions to correct his course.”
Neophytou also denied the reports that Larnaca controllers did not know how to use the new radar equipment.
“It’s not true that no one knows how to use it,” he said. “It’s really a pity that in the case of some other countries because of the fault of controllers people lost their lives. In Cyprus because of the controllers we save lives, and it upsets us greatly the way this incident has been presented. It was a great opportunity to say good things about the people and the modern system, but they presented it like a catastrophe.”
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
