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| “We
cannot comment at this time,” said the air traffic management
expert at Skyguide.
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ZURICH,
July 4 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Swiss air traffic control
declined Thursday, July 4, to comment on a report that the crew of the
Russian jet that crashed into a Boeing cargo plane earlier this week
had warned it was on a collision course, as Russian Prime Minister
Mikhail Kasyanov demanded international measures to prevent another
mid-air crash.
"We cannot confirm that
in anyway at all. Basically we cannot comment at this time," said
Christian Weiss, air traffic management expert at Skyguide, the Swiss
air traffic control agency.
"That's probably going to
be a matter for the BFU (accident investigation unit) in Germany,
whether there was a warning of that kind or not from the pilot's
side," he added.
"To my knowledge there
was none," Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted him as saying.
Russian state news agency RIA
Novosti cited Thursday an unnamed inquiry source as saying the Russian
Tupolev had warned Swiss air control it was on a collision course 90
seconds before the fatal mid-air crash. It said the Swiss control
tower responded to the warning only 50 seconds before the crash.
Skyguide has repeatedly said
ground control in Zurich warned the Tupolev airliner 50 seconds before
the collision over southern Germany, instructing it to descend, but
that the Russian crew reacted late, AFP reported.
Skyguide has also said it had
no indication that the Russian aircraft's collision warning system
(TCAS) was operating.
The mandatory TCAS systems on
each aircraft are designed to communicate directly with each other,
alerting crews of the close presence of another aircraft and allowing
them to avoid collisions even if they take evasive action, according
to aviation officials.
Meanwhile, Russian Prime
Minister said international measures were needed to prevent another
mid-air crash like that which killed 71 people over southern Germany
this week.
"We are sure that the
work of our experts will shed light on the causes of this tragedy and
enable all necessary measures to be taken at the international level
to ensure such a tragedy does not happen again," Kasyanov told a
cabinet meeting in remarks broadcast on ORT television.
German Transport Minister Kurt
Bodewig had called earlier Thursday for the introduction of a single
system for monitoring European air space.
Air traffic controllers have
come under scrutiny since a Russian Tupolev passenger airliner and
Boeing 757 cargo plane crashed over Lake Constance on Germany's border
with Switzerland late Monday, July 1, 2002, killing everyone on board.
The Russian plane had passed
from German to Swiss controllers about five minutes before the crash
and Skyguide, the Swiss air traffic agency, has acknowledged that one
of its automatic alert systems was not operating at the time.
According to AFP, by the time
the Russian plane had started descending, the Bahraini Boeing jet had
also lost altitude in response to an alert from its onboard TCAS
system and the two planes had flown into each other at an altitude of
35,300 feet, Skyguide said. All 71 people onboard were killed.
