13 planes mysteriously vanish from radars in Europe for 25mins in 'unprecedented' incident

A total of 13 aircraft suddenly vanished off radars for about 25
minutes on two occasions while flying over Austria, it has been
revealed.

In what is being billed as 'unprecedented' circumstances, the
incidents on June 5 and yesterday saw the flight data disappear from
air controller screens.

Austria's flight safety organisation admitted that the height,
location and other information for a total of 13 aircraft mysteriously
vanished from radars.It is believed that some of the planes were
long-haul flights carrying passengers on board. Continue...

Markus Pohanka, a spokesman for Austro Control, said relevant EU
agencies have been asked to investigate the 'unprecedented' situation.

He added that other unnamed neighbouring countries had similar
incidents and the EU's Eurocontrol, and European Aviation Safety
Agency has been asked for a probe.

Pohanka did not identify the other nations that the European flights
were flying over when they disappeared from secondary surveillance
radars.

However, a report in the Kurier newspaper said as well as in Vienna in
Austria, flight controllers in Munich and Karlsruhe in Germany, and in
Prague, the Czech Republic, and Bratislava in Slovakia also reported
related problems.

The report said German air traffic control had confirmed the black
outs, adding that the reason there were no collisions was due to the
air traffic controllers.

It could have had dramatic consequences, as 4,000 planes take to the
sky in Austria every day - with 50 in the air at any one time,
according to the report.

Air traffic was conducted 'blind' - by voice only - during the
temporary outage, it claimed.

The revelations echo the circumstances surrounding missing Malaysia
Airlines flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing which disappeared
on March 8.

The Boeing 777 - with 239 passengers and crew on board - vanished from
civilian radar screens about an hour into the night flight.

The search for the flight - which involves countries including the UK,
the US, Australia, China, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand - has so
far recovered nothing.

In relation to the 13 missing flights about Europe, Kurier cited
unnamed experts as saying interference between the aircrafts'
transponders and ground control was apparently to blame.

Pohanka declined to confirm that or to say which airlines and planes
were involved.

But he suggested that at least some may have been long-distance
passenger aircraft, based on their high altitudes.

There was no danger at any time, he said.
Pohanka said extra air controllers immediately were called to their
posts and emergency measures, including establishing voice contact
with the pilots and widening flight corridors, were put into effect.

The EU's Eurocontrol and European Aviation Safety Agency will
investigate the incidents.

Pohanka said that safety in the Austrian air space was guaranteed at all times.

He told MailOnline Travel: 'There is no situation in aviation where
there is not another procedure that takes place. We noticed that some
of the responder data sent from the plane to the ground disappeared
for a short period of time from the radar screens. That is the reason
why the contingency procedures were put into place. Voice
communication guaranteed that we knew everything about the planes in
Austrian air space and allowed air traffic controllers to do their
jobs. Distance between aircraft was increased.'

When asked what had caused the black out, Pohanka said no error was
indicated on the operating system, but they would have to wait to hear
the results of the investigation.

Source: UK Daily Mail