When a train passes a red signal it's management to blame for relying on outdated technology.

When a plane encroaches on the path of another plane struggling with 50-year old technology - I wonder who will carry the can?

When are we going to stop using this primitive voice nonsense and embrace the modern world? What lessons were learned at Tenerife? Say "Departure" instead of "Take-off" - well that seems to have done a whole lot of good.

I guess the following days will provide us with an answer.

I hope... oh well, with the latest news updates I guess there are not many things left to hope for, really.

Another sad day in the worst month in aviation history.

Nick.

--------------------

quote:

---

nullBy VICTOR L. SIMPSON, Associated Press

MILAN, Italy (October 8, 2001 10:17 a.m. EDT) - A SAS airliner collided with a small private jet while taxiing before take-off on an airport runway in Milan on Monday. The SAS plane plowed into a building and burst into flames, killing all 114 people on both aircraft.

Government officials ruled out terrorism. The Interior Ministry said the accident was most likely the result of human error as well as poor visibility from heavy morning fog at Milan's Linate airport.

The SAS plane, an MD 87 with 104 passengers, six crew members and a tank full of fuel, hit the twin-engine Cessna, swerved off the runway and ran into a baggage handling depot, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. The airliner had not yet started taking off.

The Interior Ministry said the private jet, a Cessna Citation II, was on the wrong runway.

Transport Minister Pietro Lunardi put the death toll at 114 with four ground workers missing. Fifty-six of the SAS victims were Italians, the rest other nationalities, he told an airport news conference.

"The cause seems for now attributable to human error," he said, refusing to say who was to blame. He said the investigation was in the hands of a magistrate.

Four of the dead were aboard the smaller Cessna aircraft, which was destroyed by the fire. The two Cessna pilots were German, and the two passengers on the eight-seater plane were Italian, said Alessandra Tripodi, a spokeswoman at the Milan Prefect's office.

"Unfortunately the toll is bound to rise," she said.

She said the Cessna had stopped in Milan while en route from Cologne, Germany to Paris.

More than 35 bodies had been pulled from the wreckage, as firefighters worked to contain the blaze, Tripodi said. Access to the fuselage and cabin of the jetliner was made difficult because the plane hit a cement beam as it plowed into the baggage storage building, causing the roof to collapse.

Rescue crews using a crane lifted the roof off but "the scene is not encouraging in terms of finding survivors," she said.

Thick smoke filled the air around the crash site, and charred pieces of the shattered airplane stuck out of the red-and-white checked building as firefighters tried to board. Fire trucks were clustered around the scene and the ground was covered with mounds of white, fire-retardant foam.

The airport was closed until at least midnight.

"I heard three or four booms and a few moments later a crash and then flames dozen of meters (yards) high," an unidentified airport worker told private TG5 television. He said he was awaiting word of his colleagues, some 20 of whom were believed to be in the building.

Two of the injured from the baggage depot were taken to Niguarda hospital, and were listed in serious condition, spokesman Savino Bonfanti said. Another airport worker was taken to San Raffaele hospital for shock, said spokesman Luca Esotti.

"It's a terrible tragedy that fills us with pain and mourning and comes at an already difficult time in the international context," said the provincial president, Roberto Formigoni.

German Interior Minister Otto Schily, who spoke to his Italian counterpart after the blaze, called the Linate crash a "tragic accident" and said terrorism had been ruled out.

The worst-ever runway incident happened in 1977, when 582 people were killed when a KLM Boeing 747, attempting to take off, crashed into a Pan Am 747 on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, said Chris Yates, of Jane's Airport Review.

SAS, or Scandinavian Airlines System, said the aircraft, Flight SK686, had been scheduled to take off at 7:35 a.m. Monday for Copenhagen. The incident occurred at 8:10 a.m.

"SAS is doing everything possible to help passengers and to assist Italian authorities at this time," the airline said in a statement. The airline sent experts to Milan to assist in the rescue operation and investigation.

At Copenhagen's airport, about 20 relatives and friends of the passengers who had been expected to arrive were being gathered and offered the opportunity to talk with psychologists. Relatives at Linate, Milan's second airport after its main hub in Malpensa, were kept in a room away from the press and special hotlines were set up for those seeking information.

---

--------------------

[ 08 October 2001: Message edited by: sanjosebaz ]

--------------------

Secondly My God - it's happened again - the foggy runway takeoff accident. To my knowledge it happened to Swissair in Vienna (involving a light aircraft rolling incorrectly from the other end) in Tenerife and now in Linate. There are probably other cases.

In VIE correct voice procedures were used by the SR DC9 but the little aircraft's transmissions were partially blocked. We know the history of TRF. What went wrong in LIN we don't know yet.

You are making the assumption that I was aware that it was a Cessna Citation. I was told that it was a new light Cessna being tried out by Signore Forsatti who is the owner of the Star food factory in Agrate Brianza near Milan. It would appear that not all of the information I had received was correct.

MF

--------------------

Cessna Citation, belonging to Luca Giovanni Fossati, president of Star & Findim. 2 Pilots german.

quote:

---

IL RADAR CHE NON C'ERA - L'incidente ha acceso ancora una volta le polemiche relative al radar di terra che non funziona dal novembre 1999. La cui mancanza ha provocato diversi esposti in procura. «L'inefficienza del radar di terra potrebbe aver contribuito notevolmente a causare l'eventuale errore umano». È quanto ha dichiarato Mario Marinelli, presidente dell'Unione piloti , ricordando anche che «già in passato l'organizzazione sindacale aveva segnalato la situazione».
Anche per Michele Bufo, presidente della Licta , l'associazione sindacale dei controllori di volo, il sistema SMGCS (Surface Mouvement Ground Control System) di Linate «era ormai antiquato e la sua sostituzione è stata decisa dall'Enav circa due anni fa», ma non è stata ancora portata a termine

---

THE RADAR THAT WASN'T THERE. The accident has relit the discussion about the ground radar that hasn't functioned since November 1999. <the inefficiency of the ground radar might notably have contributed to causing the eventual human error> declares Mario Marinelli, president of the pilot union, also remembering that <also in the past the union has pointed out this situation>

According to Michele Bufo, president of the ATCO union, Linate's SMGCS <has long been antiquated and it's substitution had been decided on by the Enav about 2 years ago> but hasn't been completed yet.

Food for thought...................

Saw snippets from Kastrup airport on tv just now, SAS personnel grieving for lost colleagues. Had to switch it off.

Condolences to all SAS ppruners.
Thoughts are with you.

Although I do not fly to Linate, I do fly a lot to Lugano (talking to Milano appraoch on 126.750), Olbia, Genoa, and Florence. Non standard clearances, incomprehensible use of English, an irritated response if requested to read back (an unreadable) clearance and a general carelessness…..the list goes on and on ! Just take one look at the NOTAMS page for Malpensa or Linate…

My condolences to all those affected by this tragedy.

--------------------

Second, it is a travesty on the part of Italian airport authorities to have not had ground radar operational for the past two years, as BBC claims. I have flown from both Milan airports and both tend to get fog and bad visibility, including snow. Following is the BBC excerpt from their web story;

"It was later revealed that the airport's ground radar system, which tracks planes as they move around the airport, had been out of action for anything up to two years."

1. Electronic charts with gps position overlay - I've tested them (and my airline's testing them now, I believe), and you can follow a little aircraft symbol accurately around an airport diagram (Jepp airport diagrams are to scale). So no excuses for getting lost there...

2. An electronic warning system that sets off the caution system on the a/c upon approaching/entering the active (when on the ground), and requires positive cancelling action by the crew. All a/c cleared for lvp could be fitted with this.

Ah, the costs of all this........well, hundreds dead makes it seem a bargain, to me.

Condolences to all, especially the SAS crew, who faced one of my nightmare scenarios. Poor folks - RIP.

--------------------

Yes, TCAS sounds like it could be a backstop. Does it pick up every active transponder including small a/c and will the antennae be effective on the ground? I'm no TCAS expert; so I don't know if it can do the whole job.

Best of all would be a ground traffic display superimposed on the airport chart showing all a/c (including those on final) and vehicles.

Using a simulator I was able to taxi a generic large jet around an unfamiliar airfield in LVP's with ease and confidence. So there certainly are people out there looking at technology and LVP's...

But even so - if ATC clear you for take off and the runway isn't clear... no amount of technology will help. Perhaps a HUD image coupled to a IR camera to detect heat would be universally useful?

Jaguar Cars Ltd have such a system available to the general public...

Safe flying,

Except this one. It is really quite difficult negotiating your way around a strange international airport.

Don't you just get that It could have been me killing all those people?

It is a pity that this avoidable accident should happen...

Now, if the citation left apron north (main)to depart, it would be taxiing on the parallel
all the way to R4, as, see above, R2 and R3 are not authorized.
As by then the MD is on it's t/o roll it would reach V1 at around R2.
If this is where they hit, one wonders what the citation was doing there, t/o from the intersection, going to connect to R6 to go to the GA terminal and thus crossing the active??
In either case, as R2 and R3 are not authorized under LVP, who gave them clearance to use R2 and or subsequently cross the active??
Inadvertently on R2? I doubt it as it is the first intersection after leaving the apron.
If they were coming from R6, west apron, they were stopped by the stop signal and had to get approval crossing or line up on the active. In both scenarios, would they have cleared themselves??
As for ground radar, in both scenarios it would only take a few seconds to go from R2/R6 onto the active so I doubt if even a sharp and awake ground controller would have had the time to raise hell.

--------------------

The Corriere Della Sera in Milan states that one of the German pilots told the tower that he thought he was at R5 but he actually came out of R6.

Link at http://www.corriere.it/Primo_Piano/ Cr onache/10_Ottobre/09/linate2.shtml

I don't think there is much question that what happened is that the Citation pilot was using R6, which crosses 36 and becomes R2, instead of R5, which goes round the upwind end of the runway, as cleared. The question is 'why' and right now there is no obvious answer.

As a comment, I think there is a phenomenon at the moment by which relatively cheap, do-able solutions specifically to the runway incursion/alert issue are being shelved in the desire for all-singing, all-dancing surface surveillance systems. A classic case of the perfect driving out the good.

Yes, if the citation came off west apron the clearance would have been R5.
What stuns me though is that when you leave west apron for R5 you go due north whilst if you go R6 you go south east.
One look at the chart and one at the compass would have done it.
Now, at the end of R6 there is a stop sign and flashing lights before you enter RWY 36R. So, the ATC tapes have the answer.
Who was talking to whom at that point or wasn't there any talking.

A pilots nightmare, you see it but can do nothing anymore.

Regards, AV

--------------------

Do you now not Taxi?

Get real!

I.e. It's usually rushed, they apparently have little / no coordination between sectors, you're nearly always left high / fast, they seemingly (intentionally ?) speak to us using crap aviation English (unlike the Germans, Scandinavians, Low Countries, Spanish, French, etc)

Thus one leaves the UK and all is rosy until you get handed off by German / Swiss control to Padua (Northern Italy) - and how many times have we all taken a sharp intake of breath before keying the PTT to talk to them ? i.e. you mentally prepare yourself for the inevitable numerous instructions they'll give you in some non-standard sequence / rapid-fire manner, plus all the usual descend due traffic (as in Alitalia ? ) and / or being sent to some never-heard-of-before waypoint !

Also, imho, it just gets worse the nearer you get to the ground.
E.g. Your wheels have only just kissed the tarmac and the controller is straight on the mike and giving 'vacate runway next left at .... ' (usually impossible to make), 'cleared to cross xyz but hold short of.... ', coupled to 'change frequency to.... ', all the while whilst you've literally only just landed (i.e. the reversers aren't even deployed and they're saying all this stuff to you) - and it's usually once again in that rapid-fire semi-intelligible (heavily accented / excited) manner - and they then have the nerve to be smarmy (e.g. they usually make the point by reading the instructions even faster then before) when you ask them to repeat what they said whilst you were landing the aircraft, albeit once you've finally slowed the beast enough to divert your attention to the last of the trilogy of 'Aviate / Navigate / Communicate'.

Bottom line is that if you'd 'blindly' described the above incident to me (or indeed / perhaps, most other Euro experienced pilots) and asked for a suggestion as to where was most likely ? I'd have said - and I'll wager, that many of us would similarly say - that it was Italy !

Please don't get me wrong, this is NOT meant to be some xenophobic rant but, imho, that this does not occur more often in Italy is almost amazing, but in any event it hopefully highlights that there's seemingly something about Italian ATC, and / or their training, and / or their infrastructure, and / or their investment, and / or the phraseology they use, and / or their attitude, which needs to be addressed (imho)

Yep, I'll be first to admit that maybe what I've written above is not that palatable, but (as a pilot, who's regularly flown in / out of MXP, LIN, BLQ, BLO, BDS, VCE, CIA, NAP, etc) I still think that the above should (must) be mentioned.

I register my vote of agreement with your statement. Some or all of this may or may not have been a factor in this latest disaster but nevertheless I believe your statement worthy.

--------------------

--------------------

It´s Not Broken, It´s British

Ground radar is just an aid for getting more traffic into the air at LO VIS OPS! If the procedures are limiting the number of A/C on the manoeuvring area to one at a time, ground radar is not necessary from a safety point of view.

If the A/D is equipped with red stop bars, flashing lights, standard ICAO markings etc. etc., the number of A/C on the manoeuvring area may be increased, but still the procedures have to reflect the equipment at the airport.

What it boils down to is that I just can't believe that the poor German pilots would have taxied onto the active runway if the markings, lights, taxiway layout, ATC procedures and phraseology, etc, were meeting the high standards that we all take for granted.

If the responsibility rests solely on the German pilots, (as the Italian transport minister has stated), i.e. all ICAO/JAA procedures were followed at LIN, then I refuse to operate in low visibility before the procedures have been changed!

Demanding ground radar on all airports, no matter how small (as some journalists in the Scandinavian and Italian press are doing now), is plain out stupid. We could use that amount of money on other things that will be more effective on the general level of aviation safety.

Nick.

Sad and frustrated.

I don't understand where the scenario you gave me comes into the picture. Nowhere did I mention anything in contrary of what you're saying regarding that specific point. What I DO object to is the fact that a lot of people suffered and died that day and your reaction was, and I quote "That's life. I am not trying to excuse it, just deal with it.", which to me, at that point, was a little premature of a reaction. Therefore my point was to not draw any conclusions, ie "accept the fact that accidents will always happen", until at least "the fires were put out" and a proper investigation had taken place.
Maybe the safety will be enhanced in the future by changing how we communicate our position in foggy or conditions, just to mention an example, which would thereby validate my former point, ie "to be able to make progress and continuously enhance safety"

Nowhere did I mention anything about a ground radar, as you seem to imply...

In addition to ground radar, ALL air traffic controllers should have at their disposal; a training in situational awareness, standard phraseology and the drive to promoting a safe environment. In Italy however, most controllers simply do not seem to care about the points mentioned above.

Therefore, no matter how many ground radars airports will install, safety will NOT improve unless Italian ATC will become more efficient and disciplined in using the tools/procedures already available and common in the rest of Europe !

--------------------

So one plane hits another - fog, human error, whatever - **** happens.

You've gone down pretty heavy on Italian ATC. I've lived and worked in italy for a number of years and flown throughout Europe. I also happened to be involved in training ATC in the English language.

Compared to British, Dutch and German controllers, I agree the Italians are way behind but I do find them a lot better than the French.

The Italian ATC may not speak perfect English but they do their best, while the French babble on in their native languafe all the time. Having flown in and out of CDG hundreds of times I find their ATC terrible. It's about time they realized that they lost the war!

Going back to the accident at LIN: the secondary runway is 36L and only used for small piston aircraft, it is also difficult to recognize while taxying from the GA apron. The German pilots probably mistook 36R for 36L and crossed.

--------------------

The cockpit seems pretty intact from the pictures of the wreckage, so it might seem like the nose wheel was lifted from the ground at impact, but we just don't know yet. Whether the rotation was initiated at the normal rotation speed, or as an evasive manoeuvre by the pilot(s) as they saw the Cessna coming towards them through the fog, just a second or two before impact, the Flight Data Recorder will give us an answer to.

The aircraft caught fire the moment it hit the baggage handling building just off the end and a little bit right of the runway, so I don't think the fire department's reaction time would have mattered in this case.

This accident is a result of many tragic factors, and after the accident was a reality, even more tragic factors made this accident as fatal as it did for all on board, and those in the baggage handling building.

I guess the reason why this hasn't been discussed on the forum is that as professional pilots it is more natural to discuss all the factors leading up to an accident. That's what our job is all about. Our job is to prevent these things from happening at all. What happens after the accident is kinda the primary concern of the Cabin Crew and the Fire Department.

Don't get me wrong here: The Captain is responsible for his passengers and the whole Crew is thoroughly drilled and professional when it comes to an "On Ground Emergency." But still, I must at least say personally, I am more concerned with preventing the accident from happening in the first place than what happens after. And I think that is where the focus should be for us.

And I can assure you: Like with all other accidents throughout the history of commercial aviation: Flying will be safer after this accident too.

Excerpts...

ENAV SpA, Italy's air traffic services provider, was mindful of the growing problem of surface incursions and knew that the about 245,000 aircraft movements that occurred at Malpensa during its first year as an air transport hub would grow dramatically in number.

ENAV selected Alenia Marconi Systems to upgrade the airport's surface control by installing the manufacturer's Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control System (A-SMGCS). The A-SMGCS incorporates a
surface movement radar (SMR) and digital open architecture capable of fusing information from various sources and presenting a clear overview of ground activity to controllers in the Malpensa tower. (Commissioned on Jan15)

With the A-SMGCS' prodigious processing power, the SMR signals are fused with those of the approach radar by the sensors data handling subsystem(SDHS). Composed of the surface tracking processor and the A-SMGCS
central processor, the SDHS provides controllers with a seamless presentation of the aircraft taking off, landing and moving on the ground. An aircraft's identity or call sign, fed by the secondary radar, remains on the controller's screen even when the aircraft taxis on the ground. Soon that data will be fused with information from a VHF data link that shows the positions of ground vehicles.

Preset parameters in the A-SMGCS at Malpensa give controllers an alert when the separation between taxiing aircraft is less than 3 nm.
Likewise, when an aircraft crosses a taxiway to pose a potential conflict with another aircraft, the call signs representing the two
aircraft begin flashing on the controller's screen and a red line showing the path of possible conflict appears. The system architecture also incorporates the visual aids management subsystem (VAMS), which
controls taxiway centre lights, stop bars and other ground lights. A guidance system directs pilots as they maneuver their aircraft along taxiways at night or in low-visibility conditions. Taxiway routes
programmed by the controllers at their consoles will direct the A-SMGCS to automatically illuminate about 10 lights (each about 130 feet apart on straight sections and 33 to 50 feet apart on curves) in front of a taxiing aircraft. The lamps automatically turn off as the aircraft
passes. If an aircraft makes a wrong turn, the controller is alerted and can redirect the aircraft by contacting the pilot and quickly establishing another taxi route. So far 380 lights have been programmed into the system and they hope to program all of the more that 1,000 lights at Malpensa by the end of the year.

Similar systems are being installed at Bologna's Gugliemo Marconi airport and Fiumicino's Leonardo da Vinci. No mention of plans for Linate.

--------------------

(Source - http://www.phd.nl/aviation/wx/)

--------------------

Doc, Ace,

Just to pick up on transmission times. I just don't know how fast the extended nosewheel strut would trigger the transmission, it could be as little as 1/10th sec. but probably not more than 1 sec. - help somebody here.

I also don't know exactly what the message actually contains - but my IT background tells me the following:

One of the slowest transmissions on the planet today is your handy, mobile phone, phobile moan, GSM, or Nokia/Motorola/Ericsson thingy. Data and things like that (SMS's, etc.) today usually still go at 9600 bps (bits per second). A character is basically 8 bits, but with control overheads lets be generous and call it 9.6 - so you get 100 characters per second.

If we now guesstimate that we need the planes ID or Flight number at 10 digits/characters, a Timestamp with date at another 10-12 characters worst case, or 5-6 best case, and a transaction type indication at another 5-10 characters. - OK lets say 30-50 characters or 1/3 to 1/2 second.

To whatever that turns out to be we now add 60 nanoseconds per 1'000Km of distance and 60 or 80 nanoseconds per switching station (and here we may need to guess a bit more). 2 switching stations is minimum (1 in LIN & 1 in CPH), if land lines are used, be mean and add another 5 that will normally take you anywhere in the world. So worst case use 2000km = 120 ns. + 7 x 80 ns. = 680 ns. That to laymen is around 2/3rds of a sec.

So the whole transmission, even if its at these slow speeds is in the 1-2 sec. range - even if it has heaps of addressing and packing information around it, to get it safely where it needs to go.

Personal gut feel says 2 secs. after liftoff CPH was processing the message.

Now calculate how far the plane travelled from the time the nosewheel strut was load free. I'm going to get this wrong so somebody correct my math - but here goes:

V1 speed ca. 200Knts = 400Kmh = 400'000m.p.h = 111 m.p.sec.

So 2 secs is anywhere between 100-300 meters depending on what is and what isn't on the ground - allowing acceleration or creating extra drag and friction.

Now how long was it from initial impact to building impact. The damage on secondary impact was high so - speed was also. From the shots I've seen that must have been the longest 5-10 secs. that none of us ever want to have to live through.

Captain you are so right - avoid it before it happens - your chances of very much influence once s**t has started is OH so low... How sad, what a waste... RIP

I agree approximately with the conclusion though. The whole process couldn't have taken more than a couple of seconds, if that. This isn't a VLF data link like they have on nuclear subs!!