More information is coming out on
yesterday’s tragic midair collision over southern Germany. The Bashkirian Airlines aircraft was told to decend, but apparently did not do so until it was far too close to the DHL cargo plane. One possible scenario is that the DHL 757’s TCAS (traffic collision avoidance system) caused that aircraft to dive as the same time as the Tu-154, causing the aircraft to collide with each other.
Adding to the tragedy is the fact that the Tupolev was carrying nearly 70 passengers and crew, most of them Russian teenagers. Hopefully the investigation, especially the analysis of the black boxes of both aircraft, will reveal if the Tu-154’s pilots suffered a radio malfunction that prevented them from hearing those crucial instructions from Swiss air traffic controllers.
