Airliner Interceptions

Recently there was the much publicised interception of a Latvian operated cargo aircraft by RAF Typhoons over southern England. The incident was resolved when the cargo aircraft obeyed the orders from the RAF interceptors to land at Stansted airport. It was interesting for professional aviators from a variety angles, not least of which is the fact that clearly the crew were not maintaining a listening watch on the emergency frequency 121.50 MHz. A frequent occurrence these days is to hear calls on 121.5 from aircraft calling on behalf of ATC agencies when a flight has gone too far away from their ground transmitter and can only be reached from an airborne station. Usually this is after the ground agency has tried several times unsuccessfully to make contact themselves.

In the vast majority of cases the crew respond and there is no need for an interception from the military. There are those who question whether intercepting civilian aircraft travelling on recognised airways is the right thing to do as a response to lack of communication. Maybe they have not thought it through properly. You don’t have to look back very far to think of some flights which have gone awry and we’re not even considering September 11th, 2001. Think of Malaysian Flight 370, think of Helios and there are others too; flights lost after communication also ceased. In the case of the Antonov 26 Cargo aircraft allegedly crewed by Estonian flightdeck crew, it is likely that simple human error or finger trouble was to blame, nothing more sinister than that. However after all that has gone before, including the September 11th attacks, then you can certainly understand the British Government’s policy regarding aircraft arriving into UK airspace being uncontactable by normal air traffic control methods.

…it is likely that simple human error or finger trouble was to blame, nothing more sinister than that.

Civilian airliners being intercepted by military fighters are not as rare as one might think. Going back many years now when I was working for a charter airline flying B757s to and from holiday destinations all over Europe, one of our flights (early ’90s) was intercepted in Austrian upper airspace by an Austrian Air Force fighter. The reason given at that time was that the airliner flight number had been incorrectly filed — I think it had something to do with inexperience in the Ops Dept who filed an HM Government trooping flight as a holiday charter by mistake. The Austrians were probably making a point… Whatever the reason, I recall the B757 Captain relating the story of how in the middle of the night, their TCAS system went crazy as the fighter came rushing up from down below in line astern position. I think nowadays the fighters turn off the TCAS or switch to Standby mode prior to formating on the target aircraft.

When I was working for the Low-Cost Operator in the late 1990s we went through a period when we had more than a few interceptions of our flights coming back to the UK. Funnily enough these were over central Europe, not arriving into the UK. On investigation we found that the most common flight being intercepted for being uncontactable on the R/T, was the inbound flight from Athens in Greece. Further enquiries revealed that the flight was scheduled to arrive in Athens during the early hours of the morning, (local time) and then had to remain on the ground until 6am local time before departure. Therefore the crew were reporting for duty late evening in the UK, flying the three and a half hours to Athens, being forced to sit around onboard the aircraft for three hours or so, prior to flying back home to Luton. Needless to say this sort of duty is likely to have the most debilitating effect on the flightcrew’s awareness and arousal levels. It was decided that it was possible that some of the pilots MAY have actually fallen asleep while operating the flight back home again… Therefore the scheduling policy was changed — the flight to Athens became a day flight only and in fact it was at that point I believe that we effected a change to SOPs.

There was introduced a very strict ruling whereby ALL flights were instructed to maintain a listening watch on the emergency (guard) frequency, 121.50 MHz on the second VHF box at all times while airborne. No surprises then that the interceptions stopped and I would be surprised if there have been any since for that airline. In reality most of our crews had already been listening out on Guard on VHF2 for many years as a policy of good airmanship, but once it was enforced, then it became 100% across the fleet.

Maybe if the A380 flight from the one of the Gulf Carriers had been listening out on 121.5 on VHF2 recently over Europe then it too might not have been intercepted by fighters. This particular incident — although not widely reported, lead to a disciplinary hearing and the Captain’s resignation from the airline. In addition the First Officer was censured and his career prospects took a nosedive. There were many pilots within the airline who stated that the disciplinary went against the modern trend of no-blame culture which exists as part of modern Safety Management System practice. It should also be borne in mind that the Captain involved was very senior in the company, an influential figure and highly popular among his work colleagues.

the ‘no-blame culture’ should not be used to shield individuals whose acts or omissions produce consequences which effectively may be construed as Gross Negligence.

That being said, the ‘no-blame culture’ should not be used to shield individuals whose acts or omissions produce consequences which effectively may be construed as Gross Negligence. For example a charge of Gross Negligence could be levelled at any employee whose action or inaction brought the company’s reputation into disrepute. In this case, having your aircraft intercepted by fighters unnecessarily through not maintaining a listening watch on the radio, contrary to SOPs could qualify and in fact could have resulted in summary dismissal. The outcome of the hearing was a Final Written Warning for the Commander, which meant that any further transgression within the following 12 months would result in dismissal. Apparently, this would have meant that the Captain’s savings in the company provident fund would have been at risk, which he could not accept, so his choice was to resign. In essence his was a business decision and you can understand it from his point of view.

So there is no doubt about it. It is a serious business and we should all be aware of the potential consequences when we operate commercial flights. However, airborne interceptions are surprisingly common. In fact over the past year or two there has been a rise in the number of intercept missions flown by NATO forces, (including the RAF) as Russia flexes her muscles on the diplomatic front over Ukraine. The funny thing about the reported interceptions for me and probably other not so young aviators is that the Russian aircraft being intercepted by the RAF are the same types which were the targets from the 1960s and ’70s.

Seriously, have a look on the internet under TU-95 interception images and you will see old photographs of Phantom F4s and Lightnings in formation with the ‘Bears’. These days the interceptors are Typhoons and F16s, but the TU-95s are the same! How OLD are those airframes? It makes you think eh?

Not all airborne interceptions are hostile however and I have had the good fortune in the past to be flying airliners when we have been intercepted by fighters as an escort, while carrying troops and government supplies into bandit country. From experience the main thing is to get in contact with the interceptors early (via ATC) and keep it simple — they need to know height, speed and heading. Also it helps if you fly entirely predictably of course. The autopilot stays in and quite often they have asked us to keep our speed up; 300 kts is good for middle airspace if memory serves me right.

We (the escorted aircraft) need to fly predictably.

While on the subject of memory, it reminds me of the old, old joke on this particular subject. Forgive me if you’ve heard it before.

A couple of Fighters are escorting an airliner trooping flight, and their pilots are chatting with the Captain of the airliner to pass the time. Talk comes round to the relative merits of their respective aircraft. Of course the fighter pilots contended that their airplanes were better because of their superior speed, maneuverability, weaponry, and so forth, while putting down the airliner’s deficiencies in these areas.

After listening to this for a while, the airline pilot says, “Oh yeah? Well, I can do a few things in this old girl that you can only dream about…” Naturally, the fighter jocks challenge him to demonstrate.

“Just watch,” comes the quick retort. And so they watch… But all they see is the airliner continuing to fly straight and level. After several minutes the airline pilot comes back on the air, saying “There! How was that?”

Not having seen anything, the fighter pilots reply, “What are you talking about? What did you do?” And the airline pilot replies, “Well, I got up, stretched my legs, got a cup of coffee, then went back to the lav and took a leak!”