Plane ‘near misses’ more than doubles
The number of incidents in Swiss airspace where there was a high risk of collision was more than twice as high last year compared with the previous year, according to the latest annual report of the Swiss Transportation Safety Investigation Board.
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In 2016, 13 ‘high risk collision’ incidents were investigated compared with just five in 2015. Most of last year’s near misses were in Zurich airspace and involved problems with incompatibility of alert systems of small aircraft.
The report also showed that there has been a significant increase in the number of incidents involving drones.
It’s not known if this is simply due to the increase in sales of drones. It’s estimated that there are as many as 20,000 commercial and private drones being used in Switzerland.
Inspite of the increase in ‘near misses’, the annual report showed that the overall number of aviation safety incidents has actually fallen in recent years – in 2015, there were 1,260 incidents compared with 1,219 in 2016.
