April 24, 2017

How technology prevented a major aviation accident

The Times of India paper dated 20.4.17 carries an article of a near miss incident involving two planes with hundreds of passengers that came less than nine kilometres and roughly 15 seconds from each other over Varanasi before the ACAS (Airborne Collision Avoidance System) sounded an alarm and told the pilots what to do. It appears that one of the planes decended more than what he was told to do and thus allegedly caused the near miss. The incident is under invetsigation.
However the role that technology played in avoiding a disaster is highlighted in the incident. The ACAS, automatically scans for other planes that are in a collision course and warns pilots to take timely evasive action. The ACAS systems in each plane talk to each other and order one plane to descend and another to ascend, thus preventing a collision.

 
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