It seems luck doesn’t seem to run Turkish Airlines way.
An Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) report today reported A Citation 525 Business jet came close to a mid-air collision with a Turkish Airlines 777after taking off from London City Airport.
The degree of separation was 100ft to 200ft below and half-a-mile from each other at 4000ft in 27 July 2009.
It appears the Citation Crew acknowledged a climb to 3000ft and reported they would go for 4000ft, with the error not noted at the Tower control.
If bad weather was a factor, this would had been even more serious as the Citation Jet does not have TACS II installed on it – an anti-avoidance system, and the Turkish crew had not followed the commands of the systems
The incident over London has been described as “serious”, with a high possibility of an accident.
The AAIB recommended that the TCAS II equipment should be made mandatory for planes flying in the London area – be they small or large, with changes how instructions are delivered and received from the tower at LCY.
Procedures have been changed as well, but questions must be raised over the obeying of commands from the Citation captain, and the crew of the Turkish Airlines aircraft.