Two passenger aircraft came close to a collision following an
equipment failure at the new air traffic control centre at Swanwick
in Hampshire.
Air experts are investigating how two jets came close to collision
after an equipment failure at a new £623m air traffic control
centre.
On Monday (17 June), a trainee controller at the centre mistakenly
put two Heathrow-bound British Airways planes on a possible
collision course. His instructor pressed an over-ride button to
warn the pilots, but the device failed.
A warning did get through to one of the aircraft, but incident is
now being officially investigated as a near miss.
The Swanwick system has been blighted with problems since it went
live in January.
The Health and Safety Executive is investigating complaints by air
traffic controllers that they have difficulty reading computer
screens and have repeatedly misread the height of aircraft by
thousands of feet and sent a plane into the wrong airspace
sector.
In May, problems with a routine overnight software upgrade left
controllers staring at blank screens and led to long delays and
flight cancellations at most British airports. This followed three
failures in air traffic systems in the previous two months.
Earlier this month CW360.com reported that internal documents from
National Air Traffic Control Services, showed the number of
controllers filing reports complaining of excessive workloads has
doubled this year.