Talk:Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937

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Does anyone know what happened to the Russian man charged with the murder of the flight controller? I have been researching this since I learned of the incident and would like to know if the trial has gone ahead.

Apparently, not yet. --apoivre 16:27, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This entire article, consisting of a mere 57 sentences, and while using reasonable good English, contains a staggering number of commas, NINETY-SIX commas in fact, an average of nearly two commas per sentence, and could use a gentle rewrite, to remove a few, you know, commas. 68.195.27.48 21:24, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 New development 2 Sliced through fuselage? 3 stand-by controller 4 Possible damaged PDF? 5 Category 6 There's more to the story 7 Human factors

[edit] New development

Don't know where this goes, but the airline has sued the German government in connection with the disaster almost 4 years later...Ranma9617 06:19, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sliced through fuselage?

Wouldn't that have destroyed both airplanes, instead of destroying one and damaging one? How can they hit at a right angle and one of them still survives for a small while longer? Could someone please add a diagram of the positions of the airplanes in the crash? Thank you. Ilikefood 19:28, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Only the tail of Flight 611 hit the Tupolev. The rest of that plane passed underneath. So while its tail broke off, dooming the flight and causing the pilots to lose control, the plane remained mostly intact until it crashed. Fagstein 01:44, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I added the requested diagrams, which are from the official crash report. I also tried to smooth out some of the phrasing in one section to hopefully improve the readability a little. There's another section that I think needs some help, namely this:

"Russia commented on that same report, that the Russian crew was hindered to obey the TCAS advisory, since it was given when they were already at 35500 feet, while the controller (ATCO) wrongfully stated, he had conflicting traffic at 36000 feet, that the controller did not contribute to a successful solution, and that the DHL crew had a real chance to solve the situation, since they heard the communication between the Russian crew and the ATCO."

Perhaps it's just me, but I have a heard time following what's being said there. It's a very long sentence that could be helped by being broken up and rephrased. Itsfullofstars 03:16, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

After reading Appendix 10 in the official crash report, I've gone ahead and made changes to the long sentence I mentioned above. - Itsfullofstars 20:34, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] stand-by controller

"Due to maintenance work Nielsen had a stand-by controller and system manager on call, but he chose not to use them in order to avoid dangerous boredom or he did not know of this possibility." -- I can't understand the reasoning why he didn't use them. Can someone explain? 83.29.249.53 14:40, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

We will never know possibly, since the mental state of Nielsen before his death did hardly allow tough questions, and since Nielsen will never be able to answer any questions. There are 2 possibilities mentioned in the official report: 1. Nielsen was not briefed thoroughly, so that he did not know the extent of the maintenance work and other related special details for that night; 2. Nielsen was afraid that 2 ATCOs would be so bored, that they are hindered to work, which could be dangerous. --Homer Landskirty 22:49, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Possible damaged PDF?

I've tried to download this from the external links section:

"Intermediary report by the German BFU"

http://www.skyguide.ch/scripts/ueberlingen_docs/happen/e/BFUStatus_Aug02_E.pdf

Several times I've tried to download it, and after getting 15 KB of it, the download stops. The latest version of Adobe Acrobat (7.0.9) refuses to read the PDF. If anyone else has the same problem we should probably delete the link. In the meantime I added a notice next to the link to indicate it may not be working properly.

I'll add this Skyguide page about the accident, while I'm at it: http://www.skyguide.ch/en/Dossiers/DossierUeberlingen/ Itsfullofstars 04:54, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

That PDF File does not exist anymore... The URL is redirected to a generic page. So I deleted it. --Homer Landskirty 05:05, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Since the original publisher (some swiss private organisation?) withdrew that document from public, I removed that link the second time today. Furthermore we find the final investigation report on a really official web server (BFU; the official german authority for that investigation) in the link section. --Homer Landskirty 17:36, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree it's best to simply remove the link. Thank you. Itsfullofstars 18:20, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category

I'm questioning if this article really belongs in the following category...

"Airliner crashes caused by design or manufacturing errors"

I thought this was a human error accident. Should that category be removed from the article? - Itsfullofstars 22:14, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

(aa) Since the operation procedures belong to the design of the piece of technique (TCAS), and (bb) since those operation procedures (russian versus international) were contradictious, this accident is caused by a design error (this accident could have been avoided by a simple prohibition of access for the non-standard russian pilots, who want to enter non-russian airspace, years in advance). In that situation it was nearly impossible to rescue those people due to the not-so-well-laid design of the security measures (maybe other crews would have avoided that accident by chosing another sink rate (the acceptable range for that kind of pilot (I prefer test pilots) seems to be 2500-3000)) or another bearing (I still wonder why the russian aircraft moved so funny... strong side-wind?) or by doing something else different (flying slower, starting later, oversleeping, ...) -- but that would be more a happenstance than a consequence of a well-laid design). Furthermore that TCAS does not do an active radar scan but just a passive transponder read-in, which could explain the careful sink rate (it looks like the Brits were afraid of traffic below them). --Homer Landskirty 23:39, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore: The german defendant in that compensation-related law suit stated, that the russian pilots are not fully responsible for the accident (they r thinking of 60%). So the official opinion concurs at least partially with mine (contradictious orders (see section heading in article) are always a design flaw, because the design of a system must not endorse contradictions). --Homer Landskirty 23:45, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] There's more to the story

I've recently been reading various online accounts about the tragedy, and I've realized there are aspects of the story that might be worth mentioning in the main article. A sampling of a few stories I've read are:

http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=455&id=717372002 http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20020703/ai_n12633934 http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4153/is_20020702/ai_n12012074 http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4159/is_20051127/ai_n15874125

From those articles above and others, I learned a few things that the wiki article hasn't mentioned yet:

• Most of the passengers, and all of the young students traveling as a group, were from the eastern Russian Urals region of Bashkortostan, where the tragedy had a large impact; there were 3 days of official state mourning in Bashkortostan (and elsewhere in the Russian Federation?... I'm unsure at this point, but I hope to find out.)

• The students, some of whom were children of influential people in Bashkortostan, were supposed to attend a festival organized by Unesco, the UN's education and cultural body. The children as a whole were a bright and gifted group, and as such the trip was a reward for their doing well in school.

• A series of events delayed the excursion of the students, who should have already been at the Estival Park Hotel in the seaside resort of Salou near Barcelona when the accident occurred. They had missed their original flight and were stranded in Moscow. Flights to Barcelona on scheduled passenger airlines were full, so a charter had to be hastily arranged with the airline of their home region. The charter itself was said to have been delayed in Moscow for 18 minutes from its scheduled departure, but I'll have to double-check on that.

• The family of the man who murdered the flight controller only got on that flight because of circumstance of fate, and were not part of the group originally chartering the plane, nor were his family from Bashkortostan; they lived in North Ossetia, in the Caucasus.

• The article as it stands now doesn't mention that some buildings were set on fire on the ground (without injuries, however), or that Lake Constance was searched by a flotilla of boats looking for remnants from the crash.

Those are just some rough ideas, and would be re-worded for entry into the article itself. I believe that some or all of these things could be added to the article, as long as it is done with a neutral point-of-view without sensationalism or blatant 'heart-tugging', and if the sources (preferably multiple ones that can be collaborated) are reliable. I'd like to find more articles that are about the subject that weren't written just a few days after the collision; often articles written in the immediate days after events such as this one can be full of misleading or simply wrong information. It takes time for the facts to come to light. For example, the number of students on board fluctuates from source to source. The wiki article states an exact number of 45, which could very well be correct, but some sources hedge their bets and only state a rough number. I'm assuming exact numbers (and much more detailed articles about the incident, in general) are probably available on Russian websites, a language I sadly can't read. I wonder how the English version here compares with the same article on the Russian or German wikipedia?

I just thought I'd propose adding some additional material such as what I've outlined above, and I'm curious what people think about the idea. If there's disagreement from others here, perhaps because the content I'm proposing may not be encyclopedic enough, that's fine. Any thoughts? - Itsfullofstars 01:16, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Those facts are too far away from the chain-of-causes for my taste (delays, mismanagement, gifted or not). If we would mention that, it would create a bad impression, I think. The age of the dead people is not so important, too (the published official report does not say anything about the age of the passengers). Furthermore the buildings are almost nothing in comparison to the fatalities (the german authorities call it "minor damage", IIRC). But I was quite disturbed by this trivia, too, when I heard it some years ago. It is important to see, that not a delay in Moscow or an unforeseen passenger caused that accident, but contradictious operation procedures and negligence (ATC officials) and panic (ATCO, flight deck crews). --Homer Landskirty 02:15, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I understand some of what you're saying, but I have to ask... Does the article have to consist solely of the chain-of-causes? Shouldn't the social impact of an incident have some weight as well in an encyclopedic article? I don't think the addition of other delays in the original schedule dilute the fact that the root causes were problems with Skyguide, etc. I know the official reports issued by government entities don't delve into social issues, and that's expected, but should wikipedia articles also follow that same sort of inflexible rule? I'll readily admit that some of the articles on wikipedia already are far beyond what you might see in other encyclopedias; I see too much pop culture 'fluff' for my tastes, but I don't think an entire region going into official mourning would be categorized as fluff, to mention just one of my proposed additions. I want it clear I'm not proposing the article be made into something sensationalistic like you'd see in a 'rag' tabloid. Well, in any case, I hope a few people reading this Talk section who only have a casual knowledge of the incident, like myself until recently, will be intrigued enough to delve further, and go beyond the dry 'nuts and bolts' of what happened. - Itsfullofstars 08:47, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Addendum to my response immediately above: I'd like to point out that WP:PERFECT lists this as one of the guidelines:

"A perfect Wikipedia article...

• acknowledges and explores all aspects of the subject; i.e., it covers every encyclopedic angle of the subject."

I'm suggesting that coverage of an airline accident shouldn't be restricted to just the immediate causes. Otherwise, one could argue why is the cold-blooded murder of the controller even discussed, since it happened long after the accident? I'm not advocating that the murder be dropped from the article, just pointing out what I see as an inconsistency. To eliminate the sole sentence mentioning that most of the passengers were school children (as suggested prior to my comments above) would be to remove a major part of what made the incident even more noteworthy, worldwide. - Itsfullofstars 09:59, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

OK - that sounds convincing... I wouldnt revert it anyway... Maybe an own section "social impact in russia" before or below the "murder" section? --Homer Landskirty 09:43, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Your idea of adding a separate section sounds like a good compromise. - Itsfullofstars 09:59, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

How is it a compromise? I mean: Which of ur wishes r not mentioned... Again: I will not revert changes of the nature u described above... --Homer Landskirty 10:28, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have simply said it was a 'good idea'. :-) Itsfullofstars 11:48, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I would like more information about this:

• Why the bearing change by the russian crew (20 degrees sounds a lot and in appendix 1 to the official report I can see a strong deviation of a straight course)? Was it an early attempt to change something about the potential conflict?
• Is there any international instance that checks national operation procedures for such contradictions? Or is it possible, that the russians or others send more pilots, who are trained to be a threat to safety?

If u find something about it, I would be interested (I would be glad, if u could add that to the article then, because my english is not so good possibly)... --Homer Landskirty 10:28, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll be happy to help in any way I can, but I suspect that the reasons for the course changes will never be known. By the way, your command of the English language is infinitely better than my German will ever hope to be! I lived in Germany in the early 1970's, but have forgotten what little German I learned. The only language I know is English, which hinders my ability to find information on events such as this one. I'm envious of those who know multiple languages. - Itsfullofstars 11:48, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

IC - I can try to translate the german texts... I have found a swiss official source, that says in the russian plane were 57 passengers and 12 crew members, although the german official report says 60+9... http://www.efd.admin.ch/dokumentation/zahlen/00579/00612/00666/index.html?lang=de --Homer Landskirty 14:57, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Human factors

The following is a PDF I found today that might be of some interest, and a citable resource for possible future article expansion:

Identifying the factors that led to the Ueberlingen mid-air collision: implications for overall system safety.

Proceedings of the 48th Annual Chapter Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, September 20 - 24, 2004, New Orleans, LA, USA

http://www.humanfactors.uiuc.edu/Reports&PapersPDFs/humfac04/nuneslaur.pdf (322 KB)

Nunes, Ashley & Laursen, Tom (2004)

University of Illinois, Aviation Human Factors Division Savoy, IL, USA

- Itsfullofstars 01:22, 19 January 2007 (UTC)