Report on F15/ Voyager 'Near Miss'

[Snoop 95]

Report from UK Air Prox Board into a near miss between two F15's and an RAF Voyager January 5th 2017:
http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/report-relea ... -1-5118895

Just ignore the photo!

[Stroudy]

How poor. Wrong picture, 'USA Air Force' and 'Stanwick' (wheres that!?) stand out as the main errors. One would assume a rag based in USAF UK country could get all the details right.

[Pete Da Bear]

Reported in the daily fail as well http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ision.html
I'm just amazed there aren't even more incidents in this area given the number of aircraft that use it. The other evening on ADS-B I saw a Voyager with a pair of Typhoons, a KC135, 2 Ospreys and 2 C130s from the SOG. Had to zoom right in to identify as their tags were overlapping.
Not anti American, or apportioning any blame in any way, ( the report appears to lay blame with the Swanick Controller ) but their radio procedures are not the clearest. RAF Coningsby ATIS is measured and well pronounced whereas Lakenheath is rushed and probably not helped by the accents. I find I need 2 or 3 listens before I can get the gist of it.
Best English radio transmissions I've heard were the Germans when they deployed to Coningsby last year. As an aside to this. When the first flight made initial contact for approach, after a perfect read back from the flight leader, control informed him " there is a Hurricane in the circuit to the north of the aerodrome". After a pause back came a very clipped Teutonic " Ya zank you for dat " I would swear I heard the click of heels.

[big john]

The actual report here :- http://www.airproxboard.org.uk/uploaded ... 017002.pdf

[page_verify]

Thanks big john for the link. It's easy to read that and tut - but lessons have been identified and it seems that the Americans have accepted there maybe other-than-American aircraft in the sky now etc. etc.

[jem60]

Coincidentally my wife and I spent a lovely couple of hours in a pub near my home last Saturday evening with a friend and his quite beautiful wife. No names, but he is Air Traffic Control at Lakenheath. He said that last Thursday or Friday was the busiest day in U.K. Airspace modern history. We didn't particularly discuss military traffic, but he said that the biggest problem that they always have is keeping their aircraft clear of gliders/sailplanes!!!.
As an aside, he was part of a Lakenheath team at Marham that pulled a Tornado for a quarter of a mile for charity the other day. I forget the time that they achieved, but they won, beating the R.A.F Regiment.

[C24]

My view from a once only read through is that the major element of this event was just plain LUCK.

The recommendations offered should have already been in force.

[Pete Da Bear]

Thanks big john for that link, it made for uncomfortable reading though. A lot of sheer dumb luck seems to have prevented a very nasty occurrence. What struck me the most, was the fact, that unless US assets were using AARA US crews were not aware of AARA being active during pre flight briefings. I wonder if that was also the case with RAF being unaware if non RAF usage was ongoing in AARA ?

[SCARECROW]

Trust me the RAF are very much aware of USAF activity.

[C24]

My reading of the link gives definite indications that the Voyager crew were unaware of the F15Es and the controllers were not on top of the situation until the near miss had occurred. The wizzos might not have been up the job at the time.
Luck seems to be the major safety factor on this occasion.

[jem60]

Work overload for everybody here. Not a perfect world, and to err is human.