A theft that could have turned into a tragedy.
On Saturday, an Airbus A350 and a Boeing 787 almost collided in the sky above the Gulf of Aden, a maritime space between the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.
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The Ethiopian Airlines Airbus A350-900 was flying between Addis Ababa and Dubai, while the Qatar Airways Boieng 787 was flying from Doha to Entebbe, Uganda.
An incident avoided thanks to TCAS
At 12:32 p.m., the Qatar Airways flight was “wrongly” asked by controllers in Mogadishu to climb to 40,000 feet, while it was flying at a constant altitude of 38,000 feet, explains the civil aviation press release from the Somaliland, which also released a video capture of the incident.
However, the Ethiopian Airlines machine was flying at the same time at the same altitude.
As a result, the two planes came face to face.
Somali CAA are investigating a near collision between an Ethiopian A350 and a Qatar Airways 787 while flying over the Gulf of Aden near Somalia, after ATC wrongly told one aircraft to climb to 40,000 feet.
pic.twitter.com/H8U1nXlVNB
— Breaking Aviation News & Videos (@aviationbrk) February 25, 2024
The collision was avoided thanks to the TCAS (Traffic Prevention Collision System) system of the two planes, which alerted the pilots to the presence of another aircraft at a dangerous distance.
The two systems coordinated, ordering one plane to descend and the other to ascend to increase the vertical distance between the two.
A contested airspace
This incident can be interpreted as one of the consequences of poor communication between air traffic controllers in Somaliland, an independent self-proclaimed republic not recognized internationally, and Somalia.
In fact, the two territorial entities are competing for control of their airspace.
In 2019, the International Civil Aviation Organization handed control of the airspace to the Somali authorities in Mogadishu.
In its statement, the Somaliland Civil Aviation and Airports Authority directly accuses Somali controllers of having made an error.
For its part, the Somali Civil Aviation Authority (SCAA) regularly accuses its namesake of having increased the risk of accidents in the sky by “misdirecting the planes”.
The SCAA tried to reassure on Facebook on Sunday.
“The Somali Civil Aviation Authority (SCAA) assures all Somali citizens and airlines using Somali airspace that it has full control over the safety of flights using Somali airspace.
There is no lack of security and safety in Somalia’s airspace,” she wrote.