[stall84]

Posts like this painfully push me to finish setting up my blog where I'm going to mostly opine on and outline aviation incidents like this..

But I can disseminate at least two flying maxims you can take away from this tragedy:

1: Do what TCAS is telling you to do.

2: Air Traffic Control does NOT have the final responsibility for your plane, you do.

- The TCAS system had already resolved the safe and correct conflict avoidance maneuvers for both of the transceivers involved (on both aircraft).

- As amazing and professional as our air traffic controllers are (and they are), they to, just like you the pilot are prone to error, and they in fact are not inside your aircraft, nor are they the pilot in command.

I've seen especially in new pilots and people that want to learn to fly this urge to defer to ATC (I even asked a friend who's a huge Flight Simulator enthusiast, of which I was too when young, what he'd do in a purely technical flight situation, and he responded he'd "ask ATC what to do"...).

While yes, Air Traffic Control 'controls' certain air space, they don't control your aircraft or its occupants. FAR 91.3 says it all, I'll let you look it up, it's 2 very brief (thank you FAA/congress) sentences that spell out the end of this discussion. You might get a fine, you might lose your license, etc etc, if you're reasoning for having to deviate from ATC rules aren't sufficient..

But hey in this case would those pilots on those 2 planes in this incident have rather lost their licenses (potentially) or have what happened happen.

Of course this incident is nuanced, as they all are. Flying safely involves mitigating and accepting certain levels of risk. TCAS was a system specifically designed and implemented to resolve collision situations. You test your equipment at regular intervals and pre-flight so that you can be confident they are working properly so that when you get into a situation where TCAS is telling you to do something, you do it.

But the reality is stress, human behavior isms' like maybe say flying in from an eastern european country and wanting to not 'piss off' the Swiss controllers, so deferring to their every direction instead of following your own instruments. << That's a real thing .. when you fly into busy airspace in the US, you quickly realize you just 'don't want to piss anyone off' .. All of these factors influence what should have been a cut and dry collision avoidance dictated by the TCAS system. And this is the cost of human flight.

[bfeynman]

I find this type of writing compelling, so if you write a blog I think you would get people to read it. One thing I've seen after the fact is the schism between media and evidence which adds an extra dimension here with the air traffic controller's story. The post mortem investigation usually takes a long time, and by then the media has completely moved on. Reminds me of the Boeing MCAS incidents, which interestingly I had a few airline industry friends, and internally according to them almost incidents were due inadequate training of pilots, but no one would say that since there is a nationalistic aspect to it.

[kingofpandora]

At the time there was no guidance to pilots on whether to follow TCAS or ATC.

That guidance to always follow TCAS came in because of this incident.

[gen220]

According to the article, there were actually conflicting guidelines.

The FAA said always follow TCAS ("any guidance from TCAS overrides guidance from ATC"), whereas other regulators were either vaguely non-committal to which had overriding priority or assigned priority to ATC.

It also notes that the Russian pilots were not accustomed to TCAS (which was not common in Russia, at the time). Even further, to the extent they were familiar with it, Russian regulations noted that the ATC's guidance superseded all other guidance systems.

[avar]

What the FAA had to say on the matter isn't relevant, and doesn't contribute to there being "conflicting guidelines". The FAA doesn't regulate European airspace.

[gen220]

Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that the pilots were operating under conflicting regulatory guidances.

Rather, I was pointing out that the international community of aviation regulators had established conflicting norms with regards to the requirement and prioritization of TCAS at the time of the incident.

The conflict in norms was a contributing factor to the incident discussed in the article, and in the aftermath of the incident, those norms were appropriately corrected. The mention of the FAA is relevant because their original guidance (TCAS guidance supersedes ATC guidance) was what the ICAO adopted in response to this incident.

[olliej]

The guidance and sole purpose of TCAS is "do what it says", in that respect it is no different from a stall warning.

The fact that Russian aviation failed to train (or even require training for that apparently) is absurd, the fact that the EU allowed planes to travel with TCAS but not with pilots that had the most basic understanding of TCAS is a sad example of the results of checkmark based safety.

As even this article acknowledges, TCAS as a system makes no sense of any kind if it can be countermanded by someone other than the pilot. There is no use case for TCAS that makes anything other than "do what it says, a fast as possible" have any value at all. Disobeying TCAS because of ATC is no different than ignoring a stall warning because ATC told you to climb.

[kingofpandora]

When it was introduced - and it was new at the time - not everything was as neat and clear as you state.

Quoting Wikipedia: "The [TCAS] manual described TCAS as "a backup to the ATC system", which could be wrongly interpreted to mean that ATC instructions have higher priority."

In fact, you'd do well to read the entire Wikipedia article to see that this was not the only case where pilots did not have clear guidance on which orders to follow in the case of conflicting ATC and TCAS orders.

[krisoft]

> 1: Do what TCAS is telling you to do.

Other similar maxim is "In case you are intercepted by a fighter jet, and ATC and the fighter jet issues seemingly conflicting instructions follow what the fighter jet says/signals, and inform about this fact the ATC."

People with missiles trained on you have command priority for all the obvious reasons.

[stavros]

FAR 91.3:

(a) The pilot in command of an aircraft is directly responsible for, and is the final authority as to, the operation of that aircraft.

(b) In an in-flight emergency requiring immediate action, the pilot in command may deviate from any rule of this part to the extent required to meet that emergency.

(c) Each pilot in command who deviates from a rule under paragraph (b) of this section shall, upon the request of the Administrator, send a written report of that deviation to the Administrator.

[genewitch]

as an aside i once called the FCC to get a definitive answer about a part 97 rule, and they put me on hold, and gave me the answer i was suspecting they would, which i am nearly positive is the wrong answer.

In the context of your post, if asked, i wonder if the FAA (or whoever) would say "the pilot has final authority, even if it goes against what the ATC commanded", even with the nuance and additional information that would be required in 91.3c.

for the record, it was 47 cfr 97.405 https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/section-97.405 - and it states clearly:

(a) No provision of these rules prevents the use by an amateur station in distress of any means at its disposal to attract attention, make known its condition and location, and obtain assistance.

(b) No provision of these rules prevents the use by a station, in the exceptional circumstances described in paragraph (a) of this section, of any means of radiocommunications at its disposal to assist a station in distress.

My question was simple - one has a radio what can transmit clearly on a police frequency, that is, if one pushes transmit, police radios and scanners in the area can hear the audio being transmitted. Can one use said radio in an emergency, if they are a licensed part 97 operator?

FCC: "no"

me: "yes, obviously."

[JimtheCoder]

"1: Do what TCAS is telling you to do.

2: Air Traffic Control does NOT have the final responsibility for your plane, you do."

I wonder if there is some human bias that preferences human directions/instruction over technologically manufactured ones (TCAS).

Especially when it's a stressful, fast paced situation.

[bombcar]

2 is very hard to keep in mind, because in a stressful situation we seem to naturally want someone "to tell us what to do".

This is one of the reasons that if you're trained in emergency situations they tell you things like "don't yell 'someone call 911' but instead point directly at someone and say 'call 911'".

[stall84]

Yes this definitely is a thing. Like I mentioned, there is a real desire 'to be liked' by ATC from the pilot. It happens to me, it happens to many pilots.. They give you an instruction and you want to show how quickly and efficiently you can execute it. The hardest part is when your own flying intuition tells you to not do what they're requesting, or even worse when it merely makes you question the instruction.. leaving you in a decision paralysis.

[jandrese]

The article put it best. If the TCAS is going off then then ATC has already failed at their job.

[xattt]

On the contrary, EKGs are well-known to have a machine interpretation line often called the "Idiot Box".

[FreshStart]

It's ultimately a culture war of neuro-types, controllfreaks and those who yearn for irresponsibility in some underling caste vs idealistic humanists dreaming of everyone being there own company,master and commander. These characters and their constructs collided that night with two planes. How to plan and prepare for this? No, idea.

[dclowd9901]

> FAR 91.3 says it all, I'll let you look it up, it's 2 very brief (thank you FAA/congress) sentences that spell out the end of this discussion.

Not to be pedantic, but there’s def 3 sentences.