Comments on: ATSB reports make light of the real teeth-clenching risks http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/07/01/atsb-reports-make-light-of-the-real-teeth-clenching-risks/ now with extra source Sun, 12 Feb 2012 10:13:47 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Ben Sandilands http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/07/01/atsb-reports-make-light-of-the-real-teeth-clenching-risks/#comment-30118 Ben Sandilands Wed, 01 Jul 2009 08:28:51 +0000 http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/07/01/atsb-reports-make-light-of-the-real-teeth-clenching-risks/#comment-30118 Bakerboy, It was a Thai A310 doing a step descent. The Cairns radar has been installed and was being tested that day when those fine tuning it picked up the jet in a dangerous position and managed to pass a message via the tower alerting the crew to their true position. It was a close call. It was subsequently determined the descent had started one step too soon, and the clearance from a rocky gorge was only around 300 feet. I wrote it up as a 'scoop' in The Bulletin and the incident happened in the early 90s, however I don't have the story on a digital database and cannot check whether or not it came before or after a Thai A310 captain became confused after making a missed approach to Kathmandu and while diverting to New Delhi mistakenly flew at full speed into a cliff at somewhere around 12,000 feet altitude from memory. In yet another extraordinary coincidence, that jet crashed at a spot not far from the cave where Australian trekker James Scott had been sheltering and rescued weeks earlier after being lost and famously surviving for weeks on chocolate bars. Bakerboy,

It was a Thai A310 doing a step descent. The Cairns radar has been installed and was being tested that day when those fine tuning it picked up the jet in a dangerous position and managed to pass a message via the tower alerting the crew to their true position. It was a close call. It was subsequently determined the descent had started one step too soon, and the clearance from a rocky gorge was only around 300 feet. I wrote it up as a ‘scoop’ in The Bulletin and the incident happened in the early 90s, however I don’t have the story on a digital database and cannot check whether or not it came before or after a Thai A310 captain became confused after making a missed approach to Kathmandu and while diverting to New Delhi mistakenly flew at full speed into a cliff at somewhere around 12,000 feet altitude from memory. In yet another extraordinary coincidence, that jet crashed at a spot not far from the cave where Australian trekker James Scott had been sheltering and rescued weeks earlier after being lost and famously surviving for weeks on chocolate bars.

]]> By: bakerboy http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/07/01/atsb-reports-make-light-of-the-real-teeth-clenching-risks/#comment-30114 bakerboy Wed, 01 Jul 2009 08:05:14 +0000 http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/07/01/atsb-reports-make-light-of-the-real-teeth-clenching-risks/#comment-30114 This reminds of an incident back in the time before there was an approach radar in Cairns. A friend of mine who worked for Airservices at the time told me about it (late 80s?). An Asian airline (Thai, I think) B747 was approaching Cairns from the north west, early morning. It was to do an NDB approach but somehow the crew put the aircraft on the wrong bearing for the descent. When it popped up near Cairns, the ATC guys turned white. The B747 had flown in cloud down a mountain valley where it was below min safety height for a lot of the time. Pure luck it didn't clip a wing on the valley wall. According to my friend, this incident was never made public but a capable approach radar was installed at Cairns not long after! Alex This reminds of an incident back in the time before there was an approach radar in Cairns. A friend of mine who worked for Airservices at the time told me about it (late 80s?). An Asian airline (Thai, I think) B747 was approaching Cairns from the north west, early morning. It was to do an NDB approach but somehow the crew put the aircraft on the wrong bearing for the descent. When it popped up near Cairns, the ATC guys turned white. The B747 had flown in cloud down a mountain valley where it was below min safety height for a lot of the time. Pure luck it didn’t clip a wing on the valley wall. According to my friend, this incident was never made public but a capable approach radar was installed at Cairns not long after!
Alex

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