Airline Pilot Said She Could "See Heads" In The GA Aircraft

An audio recording of transmissions between a Southwest Airlines pilot and air traffic controllers in Florida on March 27th indicates the Southwest 737 pilot flew her plane close enough to a Cirrus SR-22 which had been NORDO for about 90 minutes to see the occupants of the GA aircraft. The pilot did so at the request of Orlando air traffic control.

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In the audio transcripts, released October 4th by the FAA, the initial request comes from Arrival Radar B, which points out the traffic to the pilot of Southwest flight 821 on the TCAS and asks her to go take a look. The flight is then handed off to Arrival Radar L, which vectors the 737 to the proximity of the NORDO GA airplane. The Cirrus was flying on autopilot at 11,000 feet "solid."

The controller asks the Southwest pilot to descend to 10,000 and "we'll bring you up underneath of the so we don't have a separation problem."

After the Southwest pilot reports that the aircraft is in sight, she is told by the controller to "navigate on your own as close as you can do safely and take a look-see and see if you can give us any information on what you do see."  The Cirrus was flying about 60 knots slower than the 737 at that point.

The Cirrus entered a left turn as was prescribed by its flight plan, with the autopilot still flying the airplane, according to the controller. As the 737 pilot reports "passing him right now," she said "we see heads in there, we don't see any movement, though."  The controller then thanks the pilot, instructs her to take up a new heading "when you're able" and gives her vectors to land in Orlando.

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Later in the transcript, a controller said to the pilot "Apparently we woke him up, he's on our frequency now." To which the pilot replied "Wonderful."

The Tampa Tribune reports that following the incident, a controller at the Central Florida TRACON was suspended. In a March 29th  news release, FAA administrator Randy Babbitt said, "By placing this passenger aircraft in close proximity to another plane, the air traffic controller compromised the safety of everyone involved.

"This incident was totally inappropriate. We are reviewing the air traffic procedures used here and making sure everyone understands the protocols for contacting unresponsive aircraft."

The Cirrus landed without incident at Kissimmee. In an audio transcript of a telephone conversation between the TRACON watch supervisor and the Cirrus pilot, the supervisor says "I'm going to assume you saw the airplane we had fly by you to see if you were OK." The Cirrus pilot says "The jet?" and says that he did see the Southwest Airlines plane. The pilot tells the supervisor that he was not aware that he was NORDO for over an hour. "That wasn't my plan," he said. The watch supervisor filed an incident report with the Flight Safety office. An NTSB investigation of the incident is ongoing.

http://www.faa.gov/data_research/accident_incident/2011-03-27/