Turkish Airlines 777 In Near Miss

A Turkish Airlines 777 and a Citation 525 business jet came close to a mid air collation over London on July 27th.

The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) described the near miss as a serious incident.

The Citation 525 jet was about 200 feet below and half a mile away from the Boeing 777 plane which was heading to Heathrow airport with 232 people on board.

The report stated that the control, at  London City Airport had cleared the business jet to climb to 3000 feet but when the flight crew acknowledged the instruction, they said they would be climbing to 4000 feet.

This message from the German owned plane, known as a “readback” mistake, was not noticed by the controller at the Tower the AAIB said.

At the same time the Turkish plane had been cleared to descend to 4000 feet as it approached Heathrow airport west of London.

The report said that when the aircraft came close, the Turkish flight crew had not “followed the commands” of three on board collation avoidance warnings and the business jet did not even have the equipment known as TCAS II.

The business jet was spotted by a pilot sitting in the observer seat of the Turkish Airlines plane who saw the business jet, which had three people on board.

The pilot of the Citation aircraft said he had the passenger plane insight “all the time” and had at first thought that his jet would be “well above” it.

The AAIB recommended that the TCAS II equipment be made mandatory for all planes flying in the London area.