The European Organisation of Air Traffic Controllers’ Associations (ATCEUC) and the Cyprus Air Traffic Controllers’ Union (CYATCU) have called for urgent international and European-level action to address long-standing flight safety risks in the Nicosia Flight Information Region (FIR), following a near-miss between a Turkish military aircraft and a passenger plane.
In separate letters issued on Thursday, the two organisations warned that 14 years after the European Commission described the situation in the Nicosia FIR as “unsustainable and unacceptable from a flight safety perspective”, no effective technical solution has been implemented.
Incident with Turkish aircraft
The calls follow an incident on the evening of 19 August involving a Turkish Air Force Airbus A400M transport aircraft and a TUI Airways Boeing 737-800 in the Nicosia FIR.
According to ATCEUC, the Turkish military aircraft, callsign TUAF770, entered the Nicosia FIR without establishing communications and followed a route different from the one specified in its filed flight plan.
The aircraft was climbing towards flight level FL360 in the northern part of the Nicosia FIR, close to the boundary with the Ankara FIR, while the passenger aircraft, flight TOM56T, was descending through FL350 on a converging course.
According to ATCEUC, a serious incident was avoided after air traffic controllers at the Nicosia Area Control Centre (ACC) identified the converging flight paths and instructed the passenger aircraft to stop its descent.
Long-standing problem
The European federation said the incident demonstrated that the long-standing problem in the Nicosia FIR remained unresolved, with military aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles operating from Turkey continuing to conduct activities without effective coordination near critical air routes and Larnaca and Paphos airports.
In its letter, CYATCU warned that safety risks could no longer be left to the vigilance of individual air traffic controllers.
The union said the 19 August incident was not an isolated event but “a visible moment in a pattern” experienced by its members for years.
According to CYATCU, controllers at Nicosia ACC face daily unauthorised flights by Turkish military aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles in the Nicosia FIR, without flight plans filed with Nicosia and without two-way communications.
Risks
It said controllers were required to monitor, anticipate and mitigate the movements of aircraft whose flights were not coordinated with Nicosia, while simultaneously managing civil air traffic to and from Larnaca and Paphos airports.
“The reason the Nicosia FIR has not recorded a fatal accident to date, despite this behaviour, is not because the risk is being managed by any institution represented in this correspondence. It is because our members, for decades, have personally absorbed a risk that rightfully belongs to international enforcement,” CYATCU said.
The union warned that controllers’ vigilance could not be regarded as a permanent safeguard against a serious accident, particularly as unmanned aerial vehicle activity added another unpredictable element to an already complex operational environment.
The latest interventions come 14 years after the European Commission raised concerns over dangerous incidents in the Nicosia FIR.
Concerns dating 2012
In a March 2012 letter to ATCEUC, the Commission expressed “deep concern” over a reported increase in incidents and acknowledged the serious threat they posed to aviation safety, noting that it was working with the parties involved to find a satisfactory technical solution.
However, ATCEUC said that since then, no technical solution had been announced, made public or effectively implemented, while direct communication and coordination between the Ankara and Nicosia air traffic control centres had not been restored.
The European federation is calling for the immediate involvement of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a review of the lack of two-way coordination between Ankara and Nicosia, and a new high-level diplomatic initiative by the European Union involving the European Commission, Cyprus and Turkey.
Solutions needed
It is also calling for a joint safety assessment by the European Commission and EUROCONTROL, with the findings made public, as well as a clear and time-bound roadmap for restoring effective operational coordination.
CYATCU endorsed these demands and called for air traffic controllers at Nicosia ACC to be directly involved in any safety assessment or investigation into the incidents.
At the same time, it stressed that any solution should not place an additional burden on Cyprus through measures restricting civil air traffic or the island’s connectivity, arguing that Cyprus should not bear the financial or operational consequences of a problem it did not create.
ATCEUC President Jean-Denis Larrère said the aim remained to ensure that the skies over the Eastern Mediterranean were safe, predictable and governed by effective international cooperation and regulations.
“It is time to turn the commitments made in 2012 into a sustainable technical solution,” he said.
Source: CNA
