The plane involved in a near miss with an Air Malta aircraft on Thursday was an Egyptair aircraft, it has been revealed. According to Plane Finder website, the incident happened at 8.35pm when the Egyptair Airbus A320 was flying from Cairo to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, at an altitude of 36,000 feet.
The Air Malta plane, also an A320, was further north, cruising at 35,000 feet on its way from Brussels to Malta. At one point, Plane Finder tracking shows both planes flying at a lower level, with the Air Malta aircraft, piloted by Capt. Kevin Whitehead, banking to the right. Both returned to their original cruising altitude after some minutes.
Contacted by Times of Malta, Raimund Fridrich, a spokesman for Skyguide, which runs Geneva’s air traffic control, confirmed that last Thursday it had received notification of a traffic collision avoidance system alert from Air Malta.
He explained that at the time the airplane was under the control of Reims air control centre.
“However, since the pilot was already on our radio frequency we acknowledged the alert and the air traffic controller in the Geneva air control centre gave him the necessary instructions to re-establish a normal separation,” said Mr Fridrich.
He said that, in technical terms, such incidents were known as ‘loss of separation’ because both planes were less than five nautical miles horizontally and 1,000 feet vertically apart.
An investigation was opened by Skyguide to determine the reasons for this ‘loss of separation’ and whether it was unusual.
“According to my information, the loss in horizontal separation was less than 10 per cent and vertically less than 20 per cent. After the corrective measures given by Skyguide’s Geneva ACC, the situation was back to normal after four seconds.”
He added that, in such cases, Skyguide would inform its Swiss regulator, the Federal Office of Civil Aviation and the Swiss Accident Investigation Board. However, he pointed out that a Swiss investigation was unlikely as the incident happened in French airspace.
Air Malta CEO Peter Davies said when contacted he was “not worried” about the incident because his pilots were well trained for such eventualities, including through simulation exercises.
“It is unnerving for the passengers because they would not have expected something like this... We descended about 400 or 500 feet. But these things happen. The important thing is to train for these incidents so that we know what to do,” he told Times of Malta.
There were a number of “important” passengers onboard the flight, including the head of the Civil Aviation Directorate – the airline regulator – who was in the cockpit.
Mr Davies added that a substantial review of the incident was now underway to look at electronic evidence and reports on both aircraft.
One of the 157 passengers on the Air Malta plane said that, some minutes before the incident, the plane had experienced some turbulence and so, luckily, all passengers had their seatbelts fastened.
He said the plane suddenly manoeuvred to the right, banking at an angle of more than 45 degrees, accelerating rapidly. Though it was immediately evident that this was no ordinary manoeuvre, passengers remained calm.
The passenger said the captain immediately informed them that he had to do a sudden turn “due to an air traffic control mistake”. About five minutes later he explained that the manoeuvre followed an alert by the traffic collision avoidance system indicating that another aircraft had entered its territory.
European Commissioner Tonio Borg, who was also on the flight, gave a very similar account and praised Air Malta staff for their handling of the situation.
Dr Borg said he still considered air travel as one of the safest means of transport.