MAS Explained

Hantu Laut

MAS has responded to the seemingly "near miss" I witnessed on my flight between Labuan and Kuala Lumpur.

RVSM of 1000 is really not too far to get optical illusion of the distance of the moving object.The original RVSM was 2000 feet for FL290(29000 ft) to FL410(41000 ft) but was reduced by ICAO to 1000 ft and implemented between 1997 and 2008 over the world's various airspace.

MAS explained.

We refer to your blog post above regarding your flight experience on MH2609 from Kota Kinabalu with a stop over at Labuan en route to Kuala Lumpur dated 29 June 2010.

Thank you for raising your concerns. For your information, all our aircraft are equipped with the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS). This system functions to detect any aircrafts that is within a flight path of our aircraft.

It’s a mandatory rule by the Department of Civil Aviation that the TCAS system on the B737 aircraft must be functioning before any flight.

We have found that the incident to which you refer to did not trigger any TCAS warning. This indicates that the other aircraft was too far away and therefore did not trigger the TCAS warning.

In addition, Malaysia Airlines strictly adheres to the Required Vertical Separation Minimum (RVSM) airways which dictate 1000ft minimum vertical separation between 2 aircrafts on opposite direction.

Should there have been an incident, the pilot is mandated to file an Air Safety Report (ASR) with our Flight Operations Safety Department within 24 hours.

As there was no incident, the operating Captain of the flight did not file any report. The Captain is a senior and experienced pilot who is also an Authorized Examiner by the Department of Civil Aviation.

We would like to assure you that the safety of our passengers is our top priority. In everything that we do, there is absolutely no compromise on safety.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,
Captain Mohamed Azharuddin Osman
Director of Operations
Malaysia Airlines

July 2, 2010 6:50 PM