I have not read the journalist's report, but if he is suggesting the accident
was not the controller's fault, or was a shared fault with the flight crew,
that is in contradiction to the official reports at the time. The Swiss
controller could not be reached because he was on the phone for personal
reasons - the emergency phone, which French controllers tried to use to
contact him, was out of order. The Swiss controller then issued an avoidance
order which was in contradiction to the TCAS order, and this was the direct
cause of the accident.

GF



In article ,
says...


If so, that is incorrect. There was one controller and he was working both
the high airspace and an approach. The controller couldn't reach the tower
of the airport to properly hand off an Airbus flying the approach, which
raised his workload. When he spotted the potential conflict between the
Russian aircraft and DHL 757, he issued a descend command to the Russian
airliner.

Roughly at the same time, the copilot of the DHL 757 left to use the
bathroom, and when the TCAS alert sounded in their cockpit, the flying
pilot responded but did not make the call that they were descending. When
the copilot returned, he made the call, but was stepped on by another
transmission.

Don Brown has a column about this accident and he describes all the links
that led up to this accident:

http://avweb.com/news/columns/191072-1.html

--
Peter