Johannesburg - If you’re about to get into an aircraft, you don’t want to know what an “airprox” is.
It’s a near-collision by aircraft, of which there have been 22 in South Africa in the past five years.
Luckily nobody was killed or injured and none of the planes were damaged.
The South African Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has logged three such incidents so far this year, 12 last year, three in 2012, and two each in 2011 and 2010.
This emerged in a response to Parliament by the CAA, given by Minister of Transport Dipuo Peters in response to a question from Freedom Front Plus MP Anton Alberts.
There are three main causes: “altitude or level bust”, airspace infringement, and air traffic control (ATC) error.
Altitude or level bust involves “an unauthorised deviation of 300 feet (91m) or more from a given ATC instruction”, said the CAA, explaining that it usually means an aircraft is flying in a controlled airspace or designated aerodrome traffic zone or under radar control or procedural ATC control.
An ATC error means “ATC clearing two aircraft on a possible collision path”.
The Star