No technical defects in near-collision with F/A-18 in Altendorf
Published: Thursday, Dec 14th 2023, 14:50
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The Swiss Transportation Safety Investigation Board (Sust) has found no technical defects in the near-collision between a powered aircraft and two fighter jets in the canton of Schwyz in 2019. This was revealed in the final report published on Thursday.
The near-collision was due to a combination of two factors: The powered aircraft was descending and turning in the same space as the fighter jets and, due to the high speed of the fighter jets, no more effective evasive maneuver was possible, according to the Sust report.
A near-collision occurred on May 15, 2019 near Altendorf SZ. At an altitude of around 600 meters, the motorized aircraft of the Ausserschwyzer Fluggemeinschaft Wangen and two F/A-18 fighter jets of the Swiss Air Force flew close to each other. According to Sust, conditions were good that day. The pilots were in good shape.
According to the report, the motor vehicle was descending for a landing at Wangen-Lachen airfield. Shortly beforehand, the fighter planes had received a traffic advisory from an air traffic control center about the motor vehicle. They had wanted to avoid the aircraft by descending slightly. It was only shortly before the near-collision that the fighter aircraft spotted the motorized aircraft and undertook a further evasive manoeuvre.
According to Sust, there are always dangerous approaches in this airspace. According to the "see and avoid" principle, the crew themselves are responsible for maintaining a sufficient distance.
The motorized aircraft had a collision warning device. It also had a transponder, which should have enabled it to be detected by the fighter aircraft. The fighter planes were equipped with a radar, among other things. They had no collision warning devices, but had transponders that made them detectable by the motorized aircraft.
The report stated that the late indication of the fighter aircraft could not be conclusively explained. The collision warning device of the motorized aircraft had also been unable to indicate the direction of origin of the fighter aircraft, as their transponder had not transmitted any position information.
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