One Man Was Blamed For The Disaster (1976 Zagreb Mid-air Collision) - DISASTER BREAKDOWN
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 มี.ค. 2023
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The concept of the midair collision is horrifying if you are an air traveler. It’s about the last thing you’d ever want to be involved in. It carries such a deadly connotation with it. We’ve looked at a number of midair collisions over the years. Perhaps though none are more systemically egregious than that of the Zagreb incident. Where this midair collision differs from most we have talked about recently, is that this accident occurred in high altitude airspace, in what was supposed to be some of the most closely watched airways in Europe. This wasn’t during approach, not involving small private planes. This was a case of, large planes, high altitude, same place same time.
Forget for a moment, all of the technology that has been developed over the years to prevent this exact type of accident. Its 1976, you’re an air traffic controller, you’re sat there looking at your radar screen as two radar echoes merge then disappear. Imagine for a moment the weight one must have to carry knowing they had a direct hand in what was the deadliest midair collision to have ever occurred at that time. The Zagreb disaster is by the way still to this day the third deadliest accident in this category. This was the burden given to one unfortunate controller on September 10th, 1976. However as we go through this story, we’ll stumble across numerous problems plaguing Yugoslavia airspace, and many people in the years since this disaster have questioned whether the Air Traffic Controller was really the one at fault.
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If you found this video to be interesting, be sure to subscribe as there is a new video every Saturday. This video also went out to my Patrons on Patreon 48 hours before going out publicly. Consider joining here from £1 per month: www.patreon.com/DisasterBreakdown
Twitter: twitter.com/Chloe_HowieCB
Can you make one about Ankara 1963 mid air collision
You should make a video on the 1973 Nantes mid-air collision. One of the planes actually managed to land at an airport with all survivors, with half its left wing missing.
@@joelrichardson3761
Landed like one of them WW2 Flying Fortress', half wrecked.
APU was also a jet engine.
Do please investigate Iberia Flight 062 at some point? It features the beautiful SuD Caravelle though terribly sad.
The controller was into his 3rd consecutive 12 hour shift? Are you nuts? 👀😬How could he be blamed?
When I worked as Air Traffic Controller, in Portugal, we had a maximum of 10 hours shifts - quite rare, normally eight or less - with _mandatory_ 20 minutes breaks every two hours. Truly pampered. 😀
and even more remarkable was he was having to make decisions with faulty equipment .
Yeah I actually feel really bad for the dude. He made some mistakes but they were all understandable.
Eastern Europe, dude. And that's not the most whack shit we ever did
Maybe they mean 3rd shift of 12 hours in three consecutive days. But, it is Eastern Europe so I wouldn’t be too surprised
I dont know how any controller can be expected to maintain altitude separation whilst viewing a radar screen reporting incorrect altitude information. Craziness.
I believe my Company would have turned off the Radar and rely only in altitude reports, if only to escape from any accusations if something went really bad. And that's the doctrine anyway; if a display or instrument is displaying false information, either turn it off or if unable cover the display before anyone gets killed. As an instructor once told me, "the real problem is not when it stops displaying altogether but rather when it starts displaying what looks to be wrong information, or you have an _instrument disagree_ situation.
It wasn't even hm that gave them authorisation, the mid level ones did that. How was any of this his fault?
Simply enough, you CAN'T expect any controller to manage altitude separation when dealing with false information from the equipment at hand... Even if he tries to ignore it, he's got to get that information from someone or somewhere... AND don't forget working regular 12 hour shifts, so on sleep dep' to boot.
For my money, based on the information he DID have available, he acted on the CORRECT call to make, and to the best of his ability and education. In the heat of that moment, there simply wasn't a better resolution with any guarantee of the outcome... AND that still makes him an easy target for scapegoating. ;o)
@@gnarthdarkanen7464 Yes, one may think that you could ignore something but we keep going back to your training and everything learn that has gone before the incidenr. If a computer is saying 33,500 feet, then I will trust it. Same as a car fuel gauge saying that there is a quarter of a tank of fuel left. We learn to trust the instruments given to us.
@@gorillaau Well... We do until they betray us badly or often enough (or some combination of the two)... Of course, by then it's usually too late and the damage done.
In any case... You can only be held accountable for the information you HAVE at a time. It doesn't matter if there was never any real danger if you did NOT actually know that. ;o)
I'm from Croatia. Not too long ago, our national TV station made a documentary on this accident in which they interviewed some of the eyewitnesses who had seen the immediate aftermath. It was shocking. Probably the worst was the story of a family that found a dead body of a passenger on the roof of their garden shed, and the authorities did not send anyone to take it away for several days! Obviously, most if not all of the interviewed people were very much traumatized by what they saw.
But there was another thing that pissed me off: someone posted the documentary on TH-cam (not sure if it's been removed), and there were so many toxic comments in which people mocked and insulted the witnesses for some slightly strange behaviours they displayed while remembering the crash. Clearly, some people have never heard of PTSD and coping mechanisms.
When you said that Tasić instinctively spoke in his native language instead of English, I felt how startled he must've been. When a disaster is imminent you have no time to even think about what language you're speaking.
As a multiple language speaker, i sometimes find myself switching languages mid-sentence even in calm situations. It happens most when you talk in one language for a time and suddenly switch to another....his 3 days of 12 hour shifts (Croatian for 12 hours at home, English for 12 hours at work) was an accident waiting to happen :(
Yes, also I'm sure it was quicker to communicate and be understood in their native tongue, rather than taking that extra time to formulate it in another language and then for the other party to decipher it from the foreign language. Perhaps he would have been criticised for acting too slowly. This was a situation where the poor man couldn't win and it's only in retrospect that we can criticise his actions
I imagine his native tongue would be a lot easier to speak than English in a situation like this.
It's such a shame that the dodgy radar wasn't displaying the Trident's altitude correctly. If only it was working, the correct altitude would've been displayed, and he wouldn't have intervened with the DC-9's climb.
Absolutely, I speak English a lot in work etc but still have to mentally translate & although fluent, I still naturally speak Croatian especially if stressed
That poor man must feel horrible and this was not his fault. Even with the actions he took, he's not responsible for faulty equipment or slow communication.
RIP to all involved and I hope the survivors found peace
And being on duty for three consecutive twelve hour shifts! Pure criminality by the people who made the cut backs in funding and personnel for ATC and couldn't maintain the radar accuracy. How could the controller be blamed for that?
@@gaiaiulia I’m 99% sure he meant 3 days of 12 hour shifts, not 36 hours. That’s the legal terminology for it and there was no mention of him falling asleep during his shift.
For a job that doesn’t require a ton of brain power, that’s normally fine. For a job that is requiring you to continuously do math, write down all calculations, speak with everyone and make sure not to forget anything? Yeah, it’s too much. What I mean is that, from my own experiences doing these exact shifts, it’s fine if it’s a repetitive task or in my case simply sitting there watching over residents of a halfway house. You still remember everything. When I was an accountant on a film? By day three I was messing up numbers constantly and had to move to set to recharge. Then all was fine.
@@Cris-em9tn oh, okay, thanks. They did say consecutively. But probably like nurses, three twelve hour shifts for three consecutive days. I read it as three twelve hour shifts back to back, which hasn't been unheard of for junior hospital doctors. And yes, even twelve hour shifts three days in a row with dodgy radar is shocking. He was definitely scapegoated.
Existential crisis actor .. survivors ? What survivors ?
@@gusm5128The standard list of people involved and/or left behind when any tragedy takes place. Family, emergency workers, ATC crew, etc. My sympathies in that comment were aimed toward the people tragedies affect.
Cheers, buddy!
I have a personal connection with this accident as one of the stewardesses on the Trident was Ann Whalley, an ex-girlfriend of mine and a very gentle soul. I have not forgotten her to this day RIP Ann
how old are you sir
Sorry for ur loss
@@techyrock ?!
@@sarahpiaggio2693 ¿¿
@@techyrock Do you really need me to explain how callous and insensitive it is to respond to the first comment by asking the person's age? Why don't you just delete it?
You should make a video on the 1973 Nantes mid-air collision. One of the planes actually managed to land at an airport with all survivors, with half its left wing missing.
i literally cant believe how it flew
Wow
Like that one time an F15 lost its entire wing and still landed?
@somedudethatripsplanetinha4221 Huge difference between a passenger plane and a military one, military planes are far more robust
😮
The last words of the DC9 pilot on the CVR were so haunting: "we are finished, goodbye" he said, "goodbye."
rest in peace
I believe it was the first officer who said that.
@@darkokoporcic7146 Yes, the CVR had not been working properly but the impact jolted it into action. Those were the words of F/O Dusan Ivanus as his stricken aircraft tumbled towards the ground.
RIP to all those lost in that dreadful crash.
Certainly could have used an added "GOOD LUCK" besides "GOODBYE" but it didn't happen that way
Even if it was a fault of just one man, the system would still be at fault because there should never be an option for just one man to cause such a massive disaster. But this here was just insane. Taking care of some many aircraft alone, while on his third shift and with unreliable radar. It's just an accident waiting to happen.
the Yugoslav ex dictator Tito had decided to fly from Ljubljana LJU to Belgrade BEG and the Zagreb ZAG control was given a last minute warning for security reasons ... LJU and ZAG is only 135 kms as the crow flies ... the poor ATC guy had to clear the airspace in a very short time .... in those days there were no computers, the ATC used strips ... so, in utter panic, a tragic error occurred, since the Adria Airways plane had to change the altitude and in the process it crossed paths with BA ... so mid-air collision was inevitable ... the British pilot was cut in half by the wing of the in-bound DC-9
this I heard from a guy who had actually worked at the ZAG ATC
@@ottavva ...
@@Matticitt
Ottavva, what ??
I always found this disaster overlooked even though it's the only fatal accident involving a British Airways plane and it's one of the deadliest collisions of all time. It's somewhat forgotten
Hmm, well if you include the pre-decessors BEA and BOAC (which became British Airways) it is certainly not the only fatal accident.
@@stevenr2463 Well, the predecessors weren't the safest airlines of their times, and remembering that they were both state carriers of declining but still British Empire, one of the most influential and wealthiest countries in the world is quite disappointing. Maybe their safety record was one of the reasons why they decided to merge and create a new fresh airline.
@@volvofh_0750 it’s fair to say that in the days of BOAC and BEA flying was generally not anywhere near as safe as now.
See croatian documentary "Padala su tijela".
It got overshadowed by the Tenerife disaster and, more recently, the Uberlingen incident, which was shockingly similar in causation to this incident. That air traffic controller had a much worse end though.
It reminds me of Peter Nielsen ( who also was not completely at fault) another tragedy both for the passengers and crew coupled with the death of Peter Nielsen. So this is the situation that Gradimir Tasic faced. Lack of training, faulty radar, three twelve hour shifts, half the staff required in one of the busiest areas of the world.. The word scapegoat comes to mind and not surprisingly the real culprits got away with it.
It wasn't his fault at all.
I believe you mean the _murder_ of Peter Nielsen. An unjust murder at that since it wasn't even his fault the accident even happened. To add insult to injury, the man who murdered him was released from prison after only 3 and a half years, made a statement calling Nielsen an idiot, and recieved an award for upholding justice when he returned home to North Ossetia. Truly despicable.
I once worked 23 hours straight at a job that required vigilance but not all that much cognitive function, thankfully. The mental fog was unbelievable; I felt almost otherworldly. I can’t imagine working 36 hours consecutively at one of the most cognitively demanding jobs as that of an air traffic controller. There’s no way I could’ve exercised constant decision-making, problem-solving, organizational and visualization skills and the ability to think five or so steps ahead.
31hrs at once. Started hallucinating while I was going home. Ticket control came in, guy asked me to show him and all I could do is stare at him, at first I didn't understand him. He looked at me and simply left. I must have looked like death itself. Don't ever want to repeat something like that.
Anyone subjected to such a grueling schedule by an employer must in good concious refuse to work !
I was in the infantry. I forgot what sleep was
@@trusteeplugo6121soldiers should go on strike. Equal pay for equal work! Wait. Do they do the same amount of work in the army? I guess it’s only fair to pay them less now that I think about it.
@@Gospodin_Kurac43 hours here, but not from work... Travelling... I was tripping by the time I got home. Odd thing is I only slept for 4 hours and was absolutely fine the next day!!
That Lufthansa flight that WITNESSED the collision. 😮
The Lufthansa Captain had to repeat his message quite few times to make the controller understand as he was so shaken up by what he had just seen .
There was so many issues with this whole ordeal.
This was a complete failure on the whole system, and they tried to pin it on a single man to avoid accepting the reality of the situation they had created
As a process engineer you learn that it is never ever one person’s fault. Good process always allow for not one but numerous human errors.
The captain, Dennis Tann, was an instructor at my air cadet squadron. The instructors mess was named ‘The Tannery ‘ as a memorial to him. In a tragic coincidence the co-pilot Martin Flint lived in Staines, in the apartments subsequently built just metres from where the Trident crashed which you featured in your previous video.
BEA 548 so your saying the Co-Pilot lived in Staines Beyond Thames?
@@RBMapleLeaf Yes that’s correct Martin Flint one of the pilots on BA476 lived in apartments built metres from the crash site of BA548 in Staines.
Subsequently built? After he died? I don't understand
Robbie, there have been two Trident accidents covered on this Channel. BEA 548 which stalled and crashed in Staines in 1972 and BA476 which was involved in the midair collision in Sept 1976 which sadly killed Martin Flint. The apartments he lived in were built after the Trident crash in 1972. Hope that clears things up for you.
For just two children out of all those lives to survive the initial accident - faint rays of hope in an otherwise hellish scene of utter devastation and carnage - then die soon after, despite the undoubtedly heroic efforts of first responders, is something that I personally couldn't handle. Put simply, I don't have the emotional resilience.
And so, to all first responders - thank you. I can't think of another career that comes remotely close to the levels of sheer heroism, than that of first responders. You are made of special stuff. 24 carat gold human beings. You're amazing. So again, THANK YOU. ❤️
I remember when this happened, almost 50 years ago when I was a Flight Instructor fresh out of college. This is almost the only information I have seen available about it and I thank you for making the video. I know that Gradimir Tasic is devastated to this day by it, even though I firmly believe he was not to blame and was made a patsy by the Yugoslav Government, a convenient way to let themselves off the hook. The poor guy was inconsolable afterward and I'm sure he was shaking.
As an airline pilot, my bacon was saved by TCAS one day over Japan when an ANA 737 was mistakenly cleared to climb through my altitude and I missed him by about 3-400 feet as I was making the climbing right turn (a chandelle) commanded by my TCAS. I filed a report upon landing in Taipei and the company filed a report with Tokyo ATC, who claimed we did not come within 2 miles of one another, but did not submit any radar tape to prove it. The pilot of the other plane never took any evasive action, and had I not done so, we would have collided. TCAS is not useful when pilots do not do what it tells them to do IMMEDIATELY! When I told ATC what we had done and why, his only response was "Roger."
Thank God I'm retired...
Are you with Western Michigan?
@@fromtheflightdeck252 No, I was flying a 747 with a brown and white paint job on it. It was the F/O's leg and ATC calmly told us to turn right heading 345, and since we were on a course of about 220 and going to TPE, I sensed something was very wrong. I told the F/O immediately to disconnect the autopilot and make the turn by hand and as he started to bank right the TCAS announced TRAFFIC...TRAFFIC...TRAFFIC...CLIMB...CLIMB...CLIMB... and we did exactly that. We had been at F280 and when we stopped the maneuver and I called Tokyo we were at F315 and heading of 345. After he said "Roger" he waited about 15 seconds and then said to descend to F280 and resume course direct to Kobe and FPR. If you are a cargo aircraft they will give passenger aircraft your altitude, make you turn off the airway so they can climb on the airway and go past you and then also make you descend. They also do not observe first come first served as we do in the US. Any Japanese aircraft will get whatever they want whenever they want at your expense. I was on the way to Hong Kong from Anchorage at F330 and was put in holding over Toyota, Japan one time for 30 minutes to allow a bunch of Japanese airliners to climb out of their departure points and pass me, then ordered to descend to a lower altitude and proceed on course when I was still almost 2,000 miles from HKG! And, about TCAS. Many Asian pilots will not obey the TCAS because ATC told them to do something else, and they do as they are told. When you get an instruction (not an advisory) from the TCAS, it is because ATC has FAILED to keep traffic separated and it is to prevent the ATC failure from killing you. Those clowns just do NOT get it.
Tasić died 20 years ago, quiet young.
Cowboy, you blame YU Government ???🤠
Actually, in case of a TCAS alert the only reply from the Controller will precisely be"Roger" and nothing else. I myself was ATCo and was taught that. During the _Resolution Advisory_ the Controller stops controlling both planes involved and will only resume doing so when the pilots report "Clear of Conflict". He is strictly forbidden to transmit further instructions or traffic Information while the RA develops.
as a man from greece where the train collision just occured exposing all the faulty systems and lack of personnel it's infuriating to see another scapegoat for the government but at least we aren't the only ones
It's insane he got 2 years in prison. He has a lifetime of guilt created by circumstances he had little control over. Wouldnt surprise me in the least this poor fellow self deleted at some point.
He got handed a hot potato with faulty equipment whilst dealing with multiple other planes and being tired and probably stressed. He's the one to blame? I personally don' think so
I often wonder what became of him and whether he is still alive today .He apparently and unsurprisingly never went back to ATC and probably tried to disappear into oblivion .
@@scooby1992He returned to work as some kind of a technician but died young (reportedly from some kind of illness) a long time ago. That's pretty much everything known publicly about him.
@@TheGrejp Thank you for that . A sad and tragic case all round .
@@TheGrejp yeah probably completely forgotten like any other victim 😢
I met Dennis Tann when I was in the Air Training Corps. He was a volunteer officer and I was a 15 year-old cadet. We were on annual camp at RAF Brawdy and had a day of Chipmunk flying from the nearby, disused, RAF St. Davids. Dennis managed us on the ground. He and I spoke about his 'day job' as a Trident pilot. I recall that he told me that he was to convert to Tristars the following May. I was in awe. Three months later, he was killed, the first person I knew who died flying. I'm afraid more followed.
This tragic event has a similarly to the mid air collision involving the air traffic controller when a DHL cargo jet crashed into a Russian airliner transporting children. In that incident, a parent of one of the deceased children went to the controller's house and stabbed him to death.
Remember seeing that on Aircraft Investigation on the National Geographic Channel. Controller's name, I believe, was Peter Neilson
The Überlingen Crash in 2002 yeah. Misinterpretation and understaffing also played a role there.
I really appreciate the historical context! Great vid as always. Mid-air collisions like this one always break my brain - such vast skies, one might think it's impossible for two airliners to find themselves in the same place at the same time. And yet.
Although the sky appears unlimited, I'd say as former Controller that more than 95% of it is permanently empty while the rest is crammed with aircraft flying in both senses in Airways with just one thousand feet vertical separation and a few nautical miles longitudinal separation. It is the only way of controlling aircraft effectively and in a predictive and economical way. But risks are always there and speeds involved are enormous. There's no much room for errors nor time to correct them. And Air traffic worldwide is increasing endlessly. The more aircraft show up, the more Sectors must be created, each one manned by a Controller, because there is of course an human limit to the number of aircraft one Controller can handle at the same time. That is why pilots are constantly changing frequency and being received by a new Controller. If there were six aircraft flying in the whole United Kingdom, for example, one Controller and one Sector would be enough... 😀
Until you find out that they route them directly to the same GPS coordinates separating them only by altitudes with as little as only 1,000 vertical feet separating them, if everybody does their job right.
Very few accidents touch me as much as this one did. Thank you very much for your great research and explanation.
It would appear that we made major strides in direction of technological advancements in the air (TCAS, CRM) on the ground however the issues seem to stay the same.
This accident, at least to me, shares some significant contributing factors as the Überlingen desaster (e.g. understaffed and overworked ATC).
Fortunately this Controller did not share in the fate as the one in Überlingen did, and I would personally agree that the controller was "used" as easy scapegoat.
That you for another excellent video and I am looking forward to your future videos.
Unfortunately the same story happens this week in greek railroads. A badly maintain railroad due to privatization, no safety systems never installed, years of complains and even strikes was shut down from government and italian railroads who bought the railroads. And the worst of it, hours after the accident the prime minister drop the blame to one worker. Disgusting.
Ps. Love your videos
They always blame the workers instead of the systems that failed to help the workers do their jobs
I'm a former submariner; in the US Navy, when a submarine comes out of the shipyard after being built or having been overhauled, senior representatives of the shipyard and major subcontractors sail with it; Puts some pressure on the people most responsible, to make sure the job is done right..
We should do the same with bureaucrats and politicians.
WAKE UP ! He was the fall guy for a despotic-corrupted-inept-lackadaisacal-negligent gv't dicatorship
Good job, thanks for the video.
Under staffing is a chronic problem. I was a truck driver with a chronically understaffed dispatch department. As a result I wasted many hours waiting for answers from dispatch. This did not impact safety directly but led to frustration, exhaustion and eventually to me throwing the towel and retiring. And whoever came up with just in time shipping should be put behind bars. The Covid disaster in shipping proves the point.
I've seen a few other channels cover this accident but your version is by far my favorite. There's one accident I'd really love you to cover because it happened really close to where I live, the 1961 Transair Sweden DC-6 crash in Ndola Zambia (Northern Rhodesia) that killed Dag Hammarskjöld and everyone else on board. We have a school named after him at our university offering peace studies and conflict resolution but nobody here actually knows much about the accident
Have you watched the Mayday episode on the crash? It's quite good
I agree with you; Tasic was not to blame. The breakdown occurred as a result of inadequate/faulty technology.
I learned about this accident in an 1979 docudrama based upon this accident. It covered what was going on on the ground between the controllers, and the proceedings that followed the accident.
I think I actually watched that when looking into this video
@@DisasterBreakdown There is a book on this disaster that I have read called Zagreb One Four , Cleared to Collide ( the one four refers to the minutes past the hour that the collision occurred at ) . It is by Richard Weston and Ronald Hurst and I believe Richard Weston was a lawyer who was hired by the family of one of the BA Stewardesses who was also his Girlfriend or at least a close friend . Richard was able to attend the trial of the Air Traffic Controllers in Zagreb as part of the prosecution on behalf of the Jugoslav Government , but despite his status and personal connection he ended up trying to defend Tasic once he realised that the accident was mostly the fault of ' the system ' and not any one individual . He could see that they wanted to scape goat Tasic . Than you for covering this disaster which doesnt get much coverage considering the high numbers of deaths and seriousness . I am sure it is still probably the worst mid air collision in Europe .
@@scooby1992 The docudrama I believe is based on this book by Weston. He was the central character in it.
@@tiadaid Yes I think you are right .
You have also a recent documentary "Padala su tijela " in croatian in two episodes.
Oh, God, that poor guy...I can't even imagine the stress on traffic controllers, even today. It demands A LOT of attention and responsibility.
Thanks for the detailed and very well done video!
You called out the "scapegoating" that took place in regards this investigation, and I fully agree. There are definitely individuals who were held more responsibilty for the crash, who managed to totally avoid any form of prosecution or justice by throwing Tasic to the wolves.
If you don't mind me asking, what is your opinion (if you have one) on the incident and subsequent investigation of Trans International Airlines 863?
Mini Air Crash Investigation channel covered it in a video recently
Chloe has done Trans International Airlines Flight 863.
I already commented elsewhere but forgot to mention the most important: this video is exceedingly well made. From the beautiful graphics to the pleasant voice over and the narration, this video sheds long overdue light over this horrible accident. I was 11 when it happened, and heard about it all my Controller life. It is in my opinion a much more complex accident than Uberlingen.
In my ATC Company I am pretty sure that the Controller would not have served jail time in identical circumstances, provided that it was proved beyond doubt that there had been no negligence or recklessness from his part. Of course, it's easier said than ascertained in Court, with more than a hundred of mourning enraged families demanding a culprit... 🏃 🤬🤬
Exactly . There were so many factors including an obviously failing ATC system at Zagreb . Other controllers also contributed a little bit . The manager of the control room was chastised , the controller who was late got into trouble . Tasic's Assistant should not have left his work station to lo for his relief and also should not have completed a handover outside the room .
Thanks, Chloe, for this comprehensive account of the tragic event. I’m glad that justice eventually prevailed, but I assume that Tasic was a very different man on release in 1978 than he was on the morning of that fateful day in 1976.
Not easy to compare. The train accident was by far more tragic in systems used and thefore more dependent on human insight and guessing
@@ioannisimansola7115 Sorry, what?
Never heard of and don't remember this tragic event. Thanks for doing this one. Another overworked air traffic controller initially blamed.
On the night of 1 July 2002, BAL Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937, a Tupolev Tu-154 passenger jet, and DHL International Aviation ME Flight 611, a Boeing 757 cargo jet, collided in midair over Überlingen, a southern German town on Lake Constance, near the Swiss border.
Chloe has already done Uberlingen, it was the first video on the channel.
@@Dexter037S4 yeah, I know. I was just making the comparison between the two.
I think the ATC was killed too?
@@Chellz801 One of the children's fathers stabbed to death the controller who both assigned both aircraft the same altitude while on intersecting courses, directed the aircraft to descend against the TCAS climb command and provided the wrong direction to where the other plane was. There were several larger system issues, but he's a lot more responsible for that collision than in Zagreb.
@@k53847About the atc order being against the TCAS, the atc wasn't aware of the TCAS advisory in order to settle the conflict. Had both planes followed the tcas advisory it wouldn't have happened, had both planes followed the atc advisory, it wouldn't have happened.
As most air accidents happen, a line of events going wrong happened on that night leading to a disaster.
While midair collisions are not as common as say 30-40 years ago, there's another one that could be looked on in a future - the Quiberon Bay mid-air collision. One of the planes involved - Proteus Airlines Flight 706, was performing a regional flight from Lyon to Nantes, took a detour at the request of a passenger to view the SS France (a large cruise ship, which at the time of the incident was named SS Norway) which was nearby. After doing a quick tour and on their way back to their original flight course, a Cessna plane struck the Proteus' Beechcraft, killing all people (15 in total - 14 in the Beechcraft and 1 on the Cessna) on board of both planes. After the revelation that a passenger requested the Beechcraft to take a detour in the bay, investigators were shocked. They were also shocked that the ATC allowed them to take said detour.
That accident has been covered by another video on TH-cam I believe It was on the Smithsonian Channel Aiviatio some 5 years ago.
The ATC probably didn't know what the detour was for. In all likelihood, the pilot simply requested a temporary course change and the ATC approved it.
The last four months has seen so many close calls of collisions in the USA and it is very alarming.
This is a very sad story of people whose lives were changed forever, with some perishing and some suffering for their loss. The Yugoslavian government was 100% at fault here and not the air traffic controllers.
This story reminds me of the tragedy over the German town of Überlingen, where two commercial aircraft collided in midair, a DHL B757 cargo aircraft, and a Bashkirian Airlines TU-154 passenger jet, killing everyone onboard and as a result the air traffic controller was murdered by a family member of one of the victims of the tragedy.
It was truly a sad day for all involved.
Good video, as always!
I know many people from Vrbovec, the town above the sight. They all have chilling stories about that day...
Yet another air accident I only learned about because of this channel. Thank you once again for the superb video Chloe.
Great video. I was not familiar with this accident. Very informative. I hate it when individual controllers are blamed for these incidents when it is usually a lack of adequate infrastructure and staffing as more and more traffic puts planes in each other's way. As you said, this type of accident is exceedingly rare now. TCAS and other improvements have mitigated most of the risk. But it is horrifying to think about what those people went through up there. RIP.
Bad companies and governments always blame the little guy as it's just cheaper
@@Jabarri74 Yes. We see it all the time. Boeing tried to paint the pilots of those two 737 Maxxes that crashed, suggesting American pilots would not have crashed in an attempt to keep the plane flying.
Brilliant video. I vaguely recall watching a TV programme on this incident many years ago. As someone else has commented, this accident in the UK seems to have been largely forgotten despite involving a British plane. RIP to all those who lost their lives mostly due to the negligence of the Yugoslav authorities.
What an excellent account of this tragic accident, well researched, well written and delivered with clarity. It's abundantly clear that the air-traffic controller should not have been held liable for the multiple failures and negligence of his superiors and political masters.
I flew with Captain Tann's son during my time with British Midland including passing me on my command check. I only found recently that his father was in this accident. If only TCAS had been around then this would have been probably been avoided.
Such a sad event thank you for the great video as always. Fortunately mid-air collisions are getting increasingly rare due to better technology and improve crew resource management.
Pilots were Slovenians. Inex Adria was a Slovenian company inside former Yugoslavia.
I think today Adria Airways is the airline of Slovenia .
@@scooby1992 Not anymore. It filed for bunkrupcy.
@@zevnikov Thank you for that
Reminds me of the Überlingen mid-air collision
Only difference is there was TCAS in the Überlingen event but the controller did not know what the system suggested to not suggest the opposite.
@@gentuxable true.... Didn't one the parents kill the controller?
@@michaeldunham3385 Yes
Mid air seems safer than runways lately. The number of close calls and near miss runway incursions lately has been horrifying.
Always has been
I think some people take flying for granted, so many incidents had to take place over history just to make flying much more safer today.
Technology has advanced since the 1979s, but ATC has not. There are still too few to handle the amount of traffic. My jaw dropped when you said he was working this THIRD CONSECUTIVE 12 HOUR SHIFT. That is clearly a failure of management.
Well he was 4 hours into his 3rd day shift...that wasnt the problem. He had multiple conversations with pilots at the same time.
Mr. Hamilton, physics teacher at Robert College in Istanbul, was on the BA flight. He would be our physics teacher that fall semester.
13:40 - it is very hard to see a plane visually while flying even if you know where to look
especially at the closing speeds they must have been flying at .
The problem was that the British Airways plane was coming from Adria's left side - but from behind them.
Krumpek and Ivanuš had been told of traffic passing ahead of them from their left to their right, so they were probably looking intently at their left side.
From either seat in the Adria cockpit, seeing the British Airways plane was literally impossible, as they were coming at them from slightly behind them. (The ending slide after you've seen the video through to the end is a very good illustration of their relative attitudes upon collision).
On the other hand, the British Airways pilots had at least ten seconds to spot the Adria coming at them and react accordingly. Allegedly, they were not looking outside at all in those fateful moments.
All air accidents happen as a combination of factors, there is very rarely a single cause, or single culprit (like the buttwipe that crashed the Germanwings plane into the French alps).
In this tragedy, the general circumstances of aviation were at fault, cause the air traffic over Yugoslavia increased manyfold in just a few years, whilst the corrupt, socialist government of the country couldn't adapt to it in a timely fashion.
There was a faulty radar system in play.
The controller was overworked, left without assistance and startled after a miscommunication with a colleague suddenly put a plane in his airspace. He did mess up by not giving out a hardier conflict resolution to both planes. There were several seconds of tense waiting, which he could have used to also tell the Brits to climb, that might have woken them up in time to act.
The Brittish Airways pilots should have been looking outside their windows. The weather was good and the skies were clear with excellent visibility.
There is no one factor which caused this accident, but many that came into a perfect alignment of overwork, miscommunication and negligence. This is why the air travel industry adopts a "no fault" strategy when dealing with disasters. Everyone needs to speak up, everyone's work needs to be scrutinized, everyone needs to keep training and improving and scapegoating is a failure.
If the Brits had been attentive - all the faults of the Yugoslav authorities would have been irrelevant as no collision would have occured.
If Tasić had give ln proper conflict resolution orders no collision would have occurred.
If the middle sector controllers had waited for Tasić to give them their full attention and clearly communicate, the collision would not have occurred.
Not to mention if Hochberger had stayed at his post, or if his relief hadn't been late...
But, ultimately, the culpability remains at the feet of the Yugoslav authorities as any system dealing with air travel and other matters that have low tolerance for mistakes must be designed in such a way that any one person's failings cannot cause a disaster. We are all human and we are all fallible.
And scapegoating only leads to greater misery down the line.
MacArthur Job covered this in one of his books, and I recommend all of them to those who are interested in this aspect of aviation. His level of detail (as an experienced pilot), is very high, and they're a great read on a flight.
It's difficult to understand any criticism of the BA pilots.
I agree. His books are some of the best. I've read all three.
Great video as always! I wanted to see this disaster covered and you did not disappoint! Always fascinating and appreciated with how much you delve into the little details surrounding many of these accidents. Keep up the good work!
Air Crash Investigations have started refilming old crashes that they've covered before (like Alaska 261 & JAL 123), while ignoring accidents they haven't covered like this.
Listening to this, Russian Roulette in Deerhunter movie comes to mind, so bad was the air controlling setup in this area.
It was fascinating to learn of the RB.162 based boost engine employed by the Trident 3B. I always thought it was an oversized APU, but this was located elsewhere in the no.2 engine enclosure. Thanks for another excellent video.
After manufacturing the Trident, Hawker Siddeley went on to make trains for Boston's Orange Line and Blue Line subways (metros). After more than forty years, some of the Hawker Siddeley Orange Line trains are still running!
Thanks for the post. It brought back a lot of memories working as an aircraft dispatcher for BA at Zurich airport.That day I was on late shift commencing at 1500 hours, The unconfirmed reports were verified some short time later. It was very grim. Many of us, me included were crying having interacted frequently with flight and cabin crew. The VIP lounge was raided and more than 1 scotch was downed. Some like Paddy needed no encouragement there. Counselling was unheard of in those days and within an hour, Eric the Duty Officer was telling us to get on with it with the evening Trident to London and the Jo'Berg 747 due in later. That's how it went. A very sad day.
I cannot imagine the pain that an air traffic controller would feel knowing that a mid-air collision occurred on their watch. A tragic example of this was the first one i was aware of, the Überlingen mid-air collision between a Boeing 777 DHL cargo plane, flight 611 and a Tupolev TU154M from Russia, chartered from Domdedovo airport to Barcelona, Spain, flight 2937.
Due in part to a single controller being on duty, numerous technical problems at the Control centre and differences in interpreting the Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) between Europe and Russia (in Europe, TCAS overrode what the Controller's instructions said, in Russia, they were told the opposite, to obay the Controller instead of TCAS). Even more tragically, one of the grieving parents who lost their whole family in the crash, hunted down the controller in question and cold-bloodedly murdered the controller in front of their own family, irrationally blaming them alone for the crash.
This is a beautifully made documentary with an excellent, clear narration.
Well done.
Thanks for your kind words!
I was ATCo for 31 years, and of course in due time I received a very well written English language description of this accident, that I still own. Its reading is absolutely chilling, much more so to a Controller. I always found this accident exceedingly complex, and keep in mind that what each Controller said to the other in the handover is disputed and will never be ascertained. But indeed, had the Controller not intervened both aircraft would have crossed without hitting each other.
Just one remark, the carton flight progression strips were still very much in use in Portugal when I stopped working in 2019, and I can attest that the Air Traffic Services in Portugal are truly excellent, State of the Art in all respects. The strips are being replaced now, but they still have much going for them, being a reliable and inherently simple and instinctive way of controlling aircraft. And anyway, what is used today is a flight progression strip as well, only virtual, in a screen. What has really gone is the carton...
As a very frequent flyer into FAO I would like to thank you for your excellent work. Obrigado ;-)
@@wolfgangwust5883 LPFR? I worked in LPCS, CAT all my career, my option. We had everything from swarms of Cessnas 152 and Grobs flown by teens with 12 hours total time, to Globals and tons of Citations and Learjets all mixed together. It was exciting for young people only! Cheers! 😀
Thank you for your service doing a very difficult and demanding job ! Apparently the controllers ( initially about 6 were in court ) more or less ganged up and sided against Tasic and actually took part in a shouting match in court with accusations and counter accusations . They were all released without charge ultimately and Tasic took the blame and was the only one imprisoned .
A minor point: In 1976, three-letter airline designators did not yet exist. Therefore the flight numbers here were BE476 and JP550. British Airways’ European services still used the old BEA prefix, by the way.
Chloe i always enjoy your videos. Thanks for all your hard work that goes into these amazing vids.
There is also a ITV / some spanish name Granada that's it,, that used to produce a lot of non BBC shows, dramatization of the event and the trial afterwards that was produced in the late 70's or early 80's that was actually really well made and fascinating filmed on site in Yugoslavia for probably everything except court room scenes.
th-cam.com/video/zBGhsFzmjLA/w-d-xo.html
Another great video! I couldn't imagine being that controller, and having to live with the burden of the accident.
Yes, finally thank you Disaster breakdown for this video. I really appreciate your hard work.
Thank you that was very well explained. I joined BA in December 1976 and flew the Trident 3. I of course remember the accident very well.
I really love your videos. Thanks for making them. I can technical info elsewhere, but you really do put a human point to it
This was a very difficult story to explain, but I think you did a great job laying it all out for us viewers. Thanks again for the work you put into these videos!
Thank you for showing such a level of professionalism in your narrative.
Wow, thank you!
Another great analysis and, as usual, very detail-oriented.
hello again Chloe. i feel i could say this about every video of yours i've seen (slowly working my way through all of them), but i am constantly amazed at how incredibly well done they are. the graphics, the music, the obviously in-depth and and dedicated research are always excellent. then to top it off is your delivery which is calm and clear with your obvious passion for the subjects. i'd love to discuss each one of these videos with you as i watch them. is that what patreon is for?
anyway, be well and take care.
I am a recent subscriber to your channel and have been binge watching your videos for a time. Your coverage is respectful and fact based. I also enjoy the background music that excellently accompanies your videos and that you flash the title of the piece and the name of the author. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the artists and the respect you have for your own work!
That’s a VERY unique looking aircraft. I love the tri-jet designs. That has to be such a hopeless feeling for the ATC who intervened. It’s not his fault the computer was wrong, what he did should have been the difference but instead is what caused it. He did nothing wrong.
The mid level controller cleared the pilot to ascend through contested space not him tho? So why was he the man to blame? Planes arent allowed 500 feet from one another I believe its 2000 miniumum
@@Jabarri74 Technically the mid level controller had handed the plane over as the Inex Adria place as now on the upper sector controller's radio channel and in his air space . It was a chaotic situation made worse due to the upper sector only having one person manning it .
Great graphics, loving the added vehicles and airport views. 🎉
BTW, VIDEO MAKER! If I may say so, you kick ass! Of all the aviation breakdown channels, you cause me to feel. THAT is special and thank you for the “extra” you bring. Most calming voice to tell such tragic stories adds an eerie edge. I like a lot of these channels, but there is one thing you have removed which encourages an emotional response. The Sterility. Thanks again!!
thank you once again for doing an amazing job, its yet another accident i did not know about, thank you so much. It reminds me of the air traffic controller who was murdered when wrongly blamed for a mid air collision. One of the saddest aviation events imo.
Finally someone made a video on this accident
Wonderful documentary. Thank you for you’re hard work.😊
Thanks for giving us a current geography lesson while you were at it.
Thank you for another great video. Something about plane crashes really fascinate me, but we now have to take a transatlantic one in 2024 and all of these videos are starting to give me anxiety 😂😂 happy Saturday!
really well explained! great video, as always :)
Thanks for covering these accidents no one really knows about. It’s crazy that the two kids survived initially.
Great video , very sad story. I was a 14 year old schoolboy off sick that day in 1976 , and was watching tv when a newsflash came in breaking the story. Not sure if it was BBC or ITV. Sad to think the controllers actions in telling the Inex crew to stop climbing actually caused the two aircraft to collide............
This was the first major air disaster I remember. I remember watching a dramatization of this on our tv a few years after it.
The controllers had difficulty comprehending what the Lufthansa pilot was telling them and had to repeat several times until they finally understood what had occurred: "....e Zagreb! It is possible we have a mid-air collision in sight. We have two aircraft going down, well, almost below our position now." and then 3 minutes later "It is possible that the other aircraft ahead of us had a mid-air collision....er...just overhead Zagreb. We had two aircraft going down with a rapid rate of descent...and there was also smoke coming out."
An excellent, informative video, thank you.I flew a couple of times on Inex Adria DC9 from Gatwick to Dubrovnik.
This is another new one to me. Thanks for posting this video.
Lovely. I have been requesting this one for a while, so thanks a lot for covering this one.
May I take this opportunity to request a coverage of some Air India crashes like flight 855 and 101 please. Hope you won't mind.
Excellent coverage by the way. I have read the Wikipedia article on this accident however someone covering it verbally and with excellent video representation makes it very easy to understand. And yeah Mr. Tasic is a poor soul. Unfortunately, the system usually prefers to blame a scapegoat rather than fixing its own lingering issues.
I have just listened to your account of this tragedy,which I first came across in a book decades ago.
I fully agree; Tasic was placed in an impossible position, due to other people's errors.The man who was late; the man who left his post to look for him; and who ever was responsible for the ludicrous duty roster which forced this poor man to work such punishing shifts.
He was indeed used as the scapegoat by his superiors.
Had I been a relative of some of the victims, I would have forgiven him.
As ALWAYS, Chloe, great video and outstanding research and narration!
You know... all these mid-air collisions remind me of the ALMOST infamous "Flights 8610" incident... It's a fun (because aside from heart palpitations all around, nobody suffered too much) little story about ATC confusion nearly creating a mid-air collision that would've taken out President Eisenhower at the time... bonus for getting to feature a Constellation again... haha... BUT you may need a model for the Lockheed-VC-121A from Eastern that was also "involved"... In any case, it's a little testament to how even just a Call Sign can cause enough miscommunication to create a tragedy if we're not all paying attention and "on the ball" as it were... and the resulting point in History has a few fascinating and fun points following after... Including where "Columbine II", the Constellation in question has ended up "to date"... ;o)
3rd consecutive 12hr shift??? i couldn't even be trusted to make myself coffee after that, let alone manage a busy airspace!! this was nearly unavoidable...
This reminds me of the 2002 Überlingen mid-air collision in south west Germany, next to the Swiss and French border. Both planes were under control of Swiss Guide in Zürich. Both planes had TCAS and had the controller not intervened, the planes would have avoided each other. He was blamed, but the whole situation at Swiss Guide was very bad.
And about blaming one person, just recently with the big train crash in Greece, the dispatcher was blamed, where as the train company staff, an dispatchers have been complaining for years about the bad condition of the safety systems on the Greece railways, but nothing happened.
That day I was with my mother, brother and sister, and we were passing by the main ambulance station in Zagreb. Suddenly, all (I guess) emergency vehicles headed east. Mother said, it must be a disaster.
Faulty equipment, understaffed and overworked in such a life or death occupation. This poor man. They imprisoned him? Unbelievable. The fact that he has to live with this the rest of his life is punishment enough for something that was not his fault.
Sadly he died young of illness
great video. having grown up around airports, this one was new to me.
Very well narrated and explained! Subscribed!!!
There are several issues with the, very unprofessional, rush to find a scapegoat in a situation like this. Firstly, nothing changes. Systems and equipment should be reviewed and modified where shortcomings are identified. But they have to be identified first. Having dispensed with the culprit, workplace practices resume as before, so, nothing changes. Secondly, the remaining air traffic controllers would feel less supported in the workplace and subsequently less invested in their jobs. Probably fearful of making a mistake and, with a now demonstrated lack of support from the system, fearful of punishment, should an error occur. Not a good way to improve morale or the quality of their work. Sending this man to jail did nothing to improve airspace safety over Zagreb.
Your voice has authority and gravitas. Thankyou for the video.
Absolutely brilliant documentary, one of your best.........👏👏