Air Mauritius A350s Avoid Mid-Air Collision Over Sudan

Air Mauritius flights MK15 and MK42 flights narrowly avoid each other over Sudan. A collision in the sky between two Air Mauritius A350s was avoided thanks to the automatic pilot and the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS)  detectors of the aircraft.

Eventually, the two aircraft were 800 metres apart when they passed each other at an altitude of 11,800 metres above Sudan. It was 23:04 (UTC) on 6 January 2022, when the automatic pilot of two Air Mauritius Airbus A350-900 aircraft flying over Sudan suddenly changed their trajectories.

Safety devices had detected a risk of collision. Flights MK015 from Paris (registered 3B-NBQ) and MK042 to London (registered 3B-NCF) passed 800 metres apart at an altitude of 11,800 metres (FL390) and despite the airspace available, they were on the same route, as confirmed by the Flightradar24 site. An aerial tragedy has just been narrowly avoided.

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L’Express de Maurice, which reveals the incident, specifies: “Flight MK042, which came from Mauritius, would have asked permission from the Sudanese controller to gain altitude, that is to say to climb from 38,000 at 40,000 feet, no doubt to be able to reach its cruising speed and save fuel, after the plane had already burned a good part of it, particularly during takeoff. The Sudanese controller granted this permission, while the other aircraft, MK015, which was coming in the opposite direction, was at 39,000 feet. This posed a risk of a collision between the two aircraft. The Sudanese controller would not have taken this into consideration“.