Odd Airprox report
Discussion
I saw news today that a EZY flight almost (and I mean almost) hit an unknown "weather balloon" at FL380 over central England.
The bit that strikes me as odd is that the pilots describe a large weather balloon with equipment hanging off the bottom of it as they passed it by a mere 20-30 feet... (WTF!) but that UK radar had no primary or secondary contacts. There was no NOTAM, not even a request for a launch..
The report concludes it was a cat A incident.
So it was either a DIY device (very stupid of someone to do such a thing) or something a bit more sinister.
This was back in August so the jet stream may well have not been running its usual westerly.
Anyway, I found it quite strange to say the least that as a minimum they didn't have any sort of radar contact.
The bit that strikes me as odd is that the pilots describe a large weather balloon with equipment hanging off the bottom of it as they passed it by a mere 20-30 feet... (WTF!) but that UK radar had no primary or secondary contacts. There was no NOTAM, not even a request for a launch..
The report concludes it was a cat A incident.
So it was either a DIY device (very stupid of someone to do such a thing) or something a bit more sinister.
This was back in August so the jet stream may well have not been running its usual westerly.
Anyway, I found it quite strange to say the least that as a minimum they didn't have any sort of radar contact.
gotoPzero said:
I saw news today that a EZY flight almost (and I mean almost) hit an unknown "weather balloon" at FL380 over central England.
The bit that strikes me as odd is that the pilots describe a large weather balloon with equipment hanging off the bottom of it as they passed it by a mere 20-30 feet... (WTF!) but that UK radar had no primary or secondary contacts. There was no NOTAM, not even a request for a launch..
The report concludes it was a cat A incident.
So it was either a DIY device (very stupid of someone to do such a thing) or something a bit more sinister.
This was back in August so the jet stream may well have not been running its usual westerly.
Anyway, I found it quite strange to say the least that as a minimum they didn't have any sort of radar contact.
Balloons don't show well: a weather balloon is unlikely to carry a transponder, &, not that TC use it anyway, primary radar is designed to filter out any contacts which barely move, so it won't show on there, either. There's no reason to suppose it wasn't a weather balloon, presumably it's auto deflation didn't operate correctly.The bit that strikes me as odd is that the pilots describe a large weather balloon with equipment hanging off the bottom of it as they passed it by a mere 20-30 feet... (WTF!) but that UK radar had no primary or secondary contacts. There was no NOTAM, not even a request for a launch..
The report concludes it was a cat A incident.
So it was either a DIY device (very stupid of someone to do such a thing) or something a bit more sinister.
This was back in August so the jet stream may well have not been running its usual westerly.
Anyway, I found it quite strange to say the least that as a minimum they didn't have any sort of radar contact.
JuniorD said:
Wonder which risk it was, medium or definite?
I think this incident raises far more questions as answers!
They're two separate things:I think this incident raises far more questions as answers!
The first is the pilots assessment of the risk, based on his/her perception of how early they saw the object, & how much, if any, action they needed to take as a result: medium would normally mean no action was required to avoid.
The other is the boards assessment of the risk: they considered it definite, because the balloon should not have been there, & when the crew saw it, it was possibly too late to take any action anyway, had it been needed.
Gassing Station | Boats, Planes & Trains | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff