Tony Cunnane's RAF Years

This anecdote is based on an article I was requested to write for an official Flight Safety magazine in the late 1990s, now edited slightly to delete the date of the incident, the identity of the airline and the names of the pilots concerned. The photograph on this page was taken on a different trip to Cape Town.

When I started working as the Public Relations Officer for the RAF Aerobatic Display Team in 1989 after my flying days were over, I could concentrate on enjoying myself in what I considered the second most satisfying job I had ever had. In my time with the Red Arrows I would have the sort of travel opportunities that I thought had disappeared decades earlier with the British 'East of Suez' policy. True, in the V-bomber force we had planned to go to some really exotic locations but we never actually went - and there was no guaranteed return ticket. The flying I would do with the Red Arrows would be much different - not least because it would be passenger flying. Quite often I travelled a day or more ahead of the Team when they were on their way to major overseas displays. I did that to organise press conferences and other media arrangements for their arrival. On such occasions I travelled on civilian airlines, most often as a passenger but occasionally, by invitation, on the flight deck as supernumerary crew.

On one 13-hour flight deck trip on a B747 to Cape Town and back the company concerned, knowing my previous appointments as a flight examiner, had asked me to act as a 'hidden' observer, commenting on whatever aspects of the flights I wished, either in the passenger cabin or on the flight deck. Very sneaky but what the hell! I didn't expect anything dramatic to happen. The aircraft Captain of course knew what I was there for, but the 1st and 2nd Officers and the cabin crew did not.

About an hour after our early evening departure from Cape Town when we had reached our cruising altitude of 37,000 feet, the Captain retired to his bunk to sleep so that he would be fully fit for the early morning approach and landing at Heathrow where fog was forecast.

After the Captain had retired to sleep, I went back into the passenger cabin to sample the evening dinner being served in Business Class. The aircraft was being operated, as the Company regulations allowed, by the Senior 1st Officer in the left hand seat and the 2nd Officer, the so-called ‘heavy co-pilot’, in the right hand seat.

When I returned to the Flight Deck I found the cockpit lights shining brightly and both pilots reading magazines. The auto-pilot and the aircraft's inertial navigation system were keeping the aircraft on course. With the 1st Officer’s permission I strapped myself into the jump seat, donned a spare headset and turned up the volume of the HF (high frequency) radio – shades of my earlier AEO days no doubt. There were not many VHF stations, or airfields for that matter, in central Africa so all routine communications with air traffic control were made on HF.

After a few minutes it became obvious to me that another airliner from a different company climbing out of Nairobi was giving ATC at N’djamena (Chad) an ETA and flight level identical to ours for the next reporting point. It seemed astonishing that in the vastness of central Africa two aircraft were heading for exactly the same point in space and planning on getting there at exactly the same time. Our two pilots, engrossed in their magazines, were apparently oblivious to this. They had already reported our ETA and flight level for that reporting point to N’djamena ATC. I said nothing – I was there to observe but I was not qualified to interfere. As the ETA approached, I looked out to starboard into the inky-blackness as best I could with the cabin lights blazing. Eventually I saw the converging aircraft’s landing lights come on as a warning beacon while the pilot of that aircraft, apparently only just having become aware of the collision risk, alerted ATC to the conflict. I had to alert our two pilots. We passed within about 300 metres of the other aircraft at the same height and converging before it took evasive action. It was only then that our 2nd Officer saw it. It had not occurred to me that both our pilots would have turned down the HF volume in their headsets because the static interference was irritating.

The forecast fog had not materialised as we made our approach over central London into Heathrow. I debriefed the Captain in private about the incident and no doubt he did whatever he considered necessary. The Captain did later telephone me to say that the two pilots had not mentioned the incident until he brought the subject up in his flight debriefing. Whether an air miss report was filed, I know not. However, I felt rather sneaky about the whole thing and, perhaps fortunately, I have not met any of the pilots since.

As a guest on the flight deck, it was not for me to tell the pilots how to do their job, or to spill the beans later on about what had happened while the Captain was asleep - or was it? On the other hand, 600 plus passengers in two B747s had nearly come to grief.