Cyprus-Forum.com

[bill cobbett]

Mid-air near misses on the increase due to illegal FIR interfering with flight safety...

From French Press Agency earlier today...

Row over Cyprus air control poses growing safety risk
A decades-old dispute over the control of Cyprus airspace has sparked accusations of a growing safety risk as the volume of air traffic over the divided resort island expands.

The Greek Cypriot head of Nicosia Air Traffic Control, which under international law is responsible for supervising the airspace over the island as well as a large slab of the adjacent eastern Mediterranean, says there have been near misses and that the number of incidents is growing.

The rival Turkish Cypriot aviation authorities, who oversee flights between Turkey and the breakaway north of the island and claim jurisdiction over the surrounding airspace, acknowledge there is a problem but say the cause is the Nicosia controllers' refusal to talk to them.

"We've had a couple of very bad incidents," said Nicosia air traffic chief Haris Antoniades.

"We had a very, very serious case about 18 months ago," Antoniades told AFP.

"There was a Russian flight coming from the Egyptian airspace, flying through Nicosia to Turkey, to go to Russia, and then we had another flight coming south.

"Because of the intervention of Ercan, there was a near collision when one of the two pilots requested a different level," he said referring to the airport in the breakaway north where Turkish Cypriot controllers are based.

"It was a real mess."

Antoniades said the number of flight "incidents" was on the rise -- up from 390 in 2006 to 458 last year.

Due to the expansion of air traffic, he said his staff was working overtime to maintain safety in the area.

There are no flights across the UN-patrolled buffer zone that has divided Cyprus ever since Turkish troops occupied its northern third following a Greek Cypriot coup in 1974.

The United Nations oversees a no-fly zone over the dividing line, using two helicopters staffed by 28 Argentine peacekeepers.

"Generally speaking, the two sides have been respecting the no-fly zone over the buffer zone and have not committed any significant violations in recent years," UN spokesman Rolando Gomez said.

"However, on occasion there have been some aircraft from both sides that have strayed close to the buffer zone largely as a result of pilots becoming disorientated."

Antoniades said the risks of disorientation among pilots unfamiliar with the "weird situation" regarding the island's airspace was one of his biggest concerns.

The Nicosia Flight Information allocated by the UN International Civil Aviation Organization covers a 173,000-square-kilometre (66,800-square-mile) area of the eastern Mediterranean and controls overflights serving a large number of countries.

-- Like someone blindfolded walking around --

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