tried to further comfort the relatives of 71 victims of a mid-air plane collision over Germany last week.
Most of the victims were children from Ufa, where eye-witnesses said 30 small coffins lay on catafalques, on Saturday July 13. Television footage showed how Muslim officials and Orthodox church leaders tried to comfort desperate parents and other family members, many of whom were considered to be among the elite class, which re-emerged after the collapse of Communism.
Some parents were in tears while others nearly fainted as they appeared to ask why God allowed this tragedy to happen in a country where an increasing number of people are openly religious.
There were however indications that a Swiss air traffic controller who was on duty when two planes collided just across the border in Germany was at least partly to blame for the disaster.
SWISS ACKNOWLEDGE ERRORS
In a statement, the unidentified Swiss acknowledged that errors in the traffic control system contributed to the disaster. He said he was part of a network of people, computers, surveillance and transmission instruments, which must work seamlessly and without error. However there have also been reports that one Swiss controller took an unscheduled break, just before the collision happened.
The investigation has also revealed that Russian and European pilots follow different procedures when responding to the warnings from their on-board Traffic Control Avoidance System (TCAS). European pilots are advised to follow their TCAS at all times, even if its warnings conflict with air traffic control orders. But Russian pilots are trained to take account of both before deciding themselves, the British Broadcasting Corporation said.
PILOT IGNORED WARNINGS
It is believed the Russian pilot ignored TCAS warnings to climb and obeyed orders from air traffic control to dive – which put his plane on a collision course with a DHL Boeing whose pilot followed a "descend" instruction from his TCAS.
Among the victims were 45 Russian children who were on a holiday trip to Spain. A funeral service for the children was held on Saturday in the Russian town of Ufa in the Ural mountains. Switzerland’s president, Kaspar Villager, cancelled plans to attend the memorial service, after Russian authorities told him that people were angry and he would not be welcome.
During a visit to Ufa earlier in the week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was certain the pilots of the Tupolev passenger jet could not be blamed for the tragedy.
