Pilots praised for preventing mid-air collision

Hundreds of airline passengers came close to disaster when a Ryanair flight and an Austrian charter plane narrowly escaped a mid-air collision, air accident investigators revealed today.

Pilots of both aeroplanes were praised for their quick action in preventing a potential catastrophe during the most serious safety scare in Irish airspace for seven years.

Although two air traffic controllers had their licences temporarily suspended over the incident high above the Irish Sea on September 24 last year they were reinstated within weeks.

The Ryanair plane, en route from London Stansted to Cork, was carrying 179 passengers at the time.

It crossed flight paths just off the south east coast of Ireland with a Flightline-operated jet with 164 holidaymakers onboard on its way to Dublin from Faro, Portugal.

But despite four warnings – one from a concerned colleague and three electronic alerts on the control system – the radar controller at Shannon Airport did not warn the pilots they were rapidly closing in on each other.

The Irish Air Accident Investigators Unit (AAIU) said the planes came within critically dangerous proximity of each other.

Only the quick action of the pilots, alerted by their own onboard systems, averted potential disaster, according to the official report.

The AAIU investigator blamed the potential disaster on a “critical failure” of the air traffic controllers to deal with the situation.

An investigator said the “last resort safety net” of the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) onboard both aeroplanes had helped the pilots avoid crashing.

Two air traffic controllers – the radar controller and the planning controller - were given counselling while their licences were revoked immediately after the incident.

But the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) said both were reinstated within weeks following an internal investigation.

The radar controller was given re-training and no action was taken in the case of the planning controller.

The IAA said it accepted all the safety recommendations made in the AAIU report into the near collision.