'Are you climbing...': Chinese flight abruptly changes altitude causing major collision scare over Siberia

An unauthorised mid-air movement by an Air China passenger jet brought it too close to a cargo plane over Siberia recently. The second aircraft was also from China, and the two were seconds away from a collision, the South China Morning Post reported. The passenger plane changed its altitude over Russian airspace without notifying air traffic control, putting the lives of everyone on board and on the other plane in danger. Air China Flight CA967 was travelling from Shanghai to Milan on 6 July when it abruptly ascended from 34,100 to 36,000ft. At the same time, a Boeing 767 cargo jet of SF Airlines Flight CSS128 was going from Budapest to Ezhou in central China. The dangerous move left the two planes dangerously close to each other at 300-400 feet. Chinese social media reports suggest that the Russian air traffic controller could have given out wrong instructions to one of the planes. Also Read: Chinese satellite lost to the world reveals itself hanging in an extremely strange orbit

Audio clip of Russian air traffic controller

International airline regulations dictate that two aircraft should have a minimum vertical separation of 1,000ft. Live tracking data from Flightradar24 shows the plane making the sudden change in altitude over Tuva, a remote mountainous region in southern Siberia bordering Mongolia. The onboard alarm system, known as Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS), went off in both planes, prompting emergency measures. Audio clips from the Russian air traffic control room are circulating on Chinese social media in which one of the pilots seems to suggest that a mistake was made by the person handling the flights at the time. Also Read: Mammoth iceberg on collision course with Greenland village is suddenly standing still. Will it float away?

Pilot says, Russian traffic controller created a ‘fuss’

The clips hint that the Russian controller was handling four flights at a time. This could have led him to issue unclear instructions to the pilots of Air China. The authenticity of the audio clips could not be verified. It is also not known how the clip leaked. “Are you climbing with instruction or without instruction? Confirm, please," the controller says. The Air China pilot replies: “No. Thank you.” The entire communication was not clear because of overlapping radio transmissions. The two Chinese pilots then get on a private frequency and talk about the scary incident. The SF Airlines captain calls the ascent “very inappropriate” and asks whether it was cleared. To this, the other pilot responds that the Russian controller made a fuss and left the crew confused. They talk about filing an official complaint. Air China, SF Airlines and China’s civil aviation authority have not talked about the matter yet.