Virgin Flight goes into stealth mode by ATC, loss of separation

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markis10

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Would you think that if the individual(s) are found to have done this deliberately, they could face criminal penalties?
 
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Would you think that if the individual(s) are found to have done this deliberately, they could face criminal penalties?

Absolutely, there are many areas where a controller can be jailed.
 
Excuse my ignorance but why would somebody do it deliberately? What is there to gain?
 
Excuse my ignorance but why would somebody do it deliberately? What is there to gain?
Why do firebugs light fires, irrational moments occur from time to time with people who may be ill. What is scary is the lack of a safety net, the fact the aircraft got as far as it did and was then discovered would appear to be pure luck, thats not the ATC world I used to know.
 
It would appear they need some sort of backup which sounds an alarm should this happen
 
Yes prima facie a system flaw. Agree it is serious.

All systems require a balance between overall overriding control and individual input.

It is not an exact science


Sent from my iPhone using Aust Freq Fly app
 
I think they should go back to the bright displays that hid nothing, even if spares parts stopped being produced in the 50s (which is why they were phased out in the 80s)!
 
Interesting title coming out from Perthnow...

Virgin Australia plane vanished from radar | Perth Now

HOW can a packed passenger plane disappear from the radar for over 30 minutes along one of the busiest flight routes in Australia? An investigation has been launched to find out just how this happened last Friday on a Virgin Australia flight.
The Boeing 737 plane was flying from Sydney to Brisbane when it was lost by air traffic controllers over Evans Head, south of Byron Bay NSW.
 
The flight didn't actually disappear, slight misinterpretation of what happened. Some background info: tracks are different colours depending on whether they are under your control (green, called Jurisdiction tracks); going to affect you in some way (blue, called Announced tracks); or in a handoff to or from you (salmon (their wording, not mine!) called Handover In/Out). Tracks that won't concern you are black, not surprisingly called Not Concerned tracks. Tracks turn Blue Announced to you 30 minutes from your airspace boundary, that's how you know something is coming your way.

A side note: the display is a computer generated display based on radar feeds, ADS information and position information entered into the system manually (for those tracks not generating information from those other sources). So, for example, if an aircraft goes out of radar range (which will show on the display as an octagon), it will 'transition' to another track (a different shape) but still show all relevant information.

All aircraft that are receiving an Air Traffic Service should be Blue Announced or Green Jurisdiction. You can only change or interact with the data of an aircraft if you have Jurisdiction. When the service is finished, you can Cancel the aircraft's data, meaning the data is gone for ever, or you can Inhibit the data, meaning the data sits in the background but the aircraft data block is Black Not Concerned. This is particularly handy for VFR aircraft who leave and re-enter CTA at different points and in different sectors. The system will not post Blue Announced tracks to the next sector (stops display cluttering with unnecessary information).

The ATSB report says inadvertently Inhibited. So flight would not post to subsequent sectors but definitely not faded from radar. Holes in the system line up. Definitely a major concern
 
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