A total of
13 aircraft suddenly vanished off radars for about 25 minutes on two
occasions while flying over Austria, it has been revealed.
In
what is being billed as 'unprecedented' circumstances, the incidents on
June 5 and yesterday saw the flight data disappear from air controller
screens.
Austria's
flight safety organisation admitted that the height, location and other
information for a total of 13 aircraft mysteriously vanished from radars. It is believed that some of the planes were long-haul flights carrying passengers on board
Markus
Pohanka, a spokesman for Austro Control, said relevant EU agencies have
been asked to investigate the 'unprecedented' situation.
He
added that other unnamed neighbouring countries had similar incidents
and the EU's Eurocontrol, and European Aviation Safety Agency has been
asked for a probe.
Pohanka
did not identify the other nations that the European flights were flying
over when they disappeared from secondary surveillance radars.
However, a report in the Kurier
newspaper
said as well as in Vienna in Austria, flight controllers in Munich and Karlsruhe in Germany, and in
Prague, the Czech Republic, and Bratislava in Slovakia also reported related problems.
The report said German air traffic control had confirmed the black
outs, adding that the reason there were no collisions was due to the air
traffic controllers.
It
could have had dramatic consequences, as 4,000 planes take to the sky
in Austria every day - with 50 in the air at any one time, according to
the report.
Air traffic was conducted 'blind' - by voice only - during the temporary outage, it claimed.
The
revelations echo the circumstances surrounding missing Malaysia
Airlines flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing which disappeared on
March 8.
The
Boeing 777 - with 239 passengers and crew on board - vanished from
civilian radar screens about an hour into the night flight.
The
search for the flight - which involves countries including the UK, the
US, Australia, China, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand - has so far
recovered nothing.
In relation to the 13 missing flights about Europe, Kurier
cited unnamed experts as saying interference between the aircrafts'
transponders and ground control was apparently to blame.
Pohanka
declined to confirm that or to say which airlines and planes were
involved.
But he suggested that at least some may have been
long-distance passenger aircraft, based on their high altitudes.
There was no danger at any time, he said.
Pohanka
said extra air controllers immediately were called to their posts and
emergency measures, including establishing voice contact with the pilots
and widening flight corridors, were put into effect.
The EU’s Eurocontrol and European Aviation Safety Agency will investigate the incidents.
Pohanka said that safety in the Austrian air space was guaranteed at all times.
He told MailOnline Travel: 'There is no
situation in aviation where there is not another procedure that takes
place. We
noticed that some of the responder data sent from the plane to the
ground disappeared for a short period of time from the radar screens.
That is the reason why the contingency procedures were put into place.
Voice
communication guaranteed that we knew everything about the planes in
Austrian air space and allowed air traffic controllers to do their jobs.
Distance between aircraft was increased.'
When
asked what had caused the black out, Pohanka said no error was
indicated on the operating system, but they would have to wait to hear
the results of the investigation.
Reviewed by Theblow360
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