Skyguide

Skyguide (officially Swiss Public limit company for the services of the aerial navigation civil and military, in English Swiss Air Navigation Ltd Services.) is the company in load of the services of the aerial navigation which supervises the Swiss airspace.

Swiss public limit company of private law elected by the Swiss Confederation, skyguide ensures the safety in the whole of the Swiss airspace like in portions of the airspace of the countries bordering: Germany, Austria, France and Italy. Its task consists, in the Swiss airspace, to manage the civil air traffic as well as the military air traffic.

The firm, then selected swisscontrol, became in 2001 skyguide and its direction was then placed under the control of Alain Rossier. Skyguide is subjected to the Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and the Communication (DETEC), its watchdog committee. The Swiss Confederation, also represented in the Board of directors of skyguide, is the principal shareholder with height of 99,91 percent of the Capital-actions. Some 1400 collaborators are occupied at skyguide, of which two thirds in the field of the air security, approximately a third in the engineering service; the remainder of the personnel being mainly occupied in the administration. Since October 1st, 2007, skyguide is directed by Daniel Weder.

Partners

Important partners of skyguide are: The International Organization of the Civil aviation (ICAO), Eurocontrol (European organization for the air safety) and the Civil Air Navigation Services Organization (CANSO). In addition, skyguide has in Belgium since end 2000 a subsidiary company of the name of Skynav which is useful for him in its relations with the European Union.

Skyguide in figures

Skyguide supervises each day some 3200 flights IFR (flights evolving/moving according to the rules of instrument flying). In 2006, skyguide managed 1 on the whole ' 162 ' 078 instrument flyings of which 729 ' 990 crossed the airspace - without landing or taking off. The product rose in 2006 to 341,10 million Swiss francs and the bottom line to 18,79 million.

Sites of skyguide

The most important sites are the two control centers air or Area Control Center (ACC): that located at the airport of Zurich-Kloten and that located at the airport of Geneva-Cointrin which also shelters the seat of the company skyguide. It is envisaged to transfer in 2008 the Terminal Control Center Zurich in the new buildings built beside the military aerodrome from Dübendorf. In 2006, a UAC (Upper Area Control) should have entered in activity to Geneva. But this setting in activity had to be suspended by the Federal Office of the Civil aviation (OFAC) because of an unsatisfactory documentation compared to sedentary aspects. The other sites of skyguide are with the airport of Bern-Belp, at the aerodrome of Buochs, the aerodrome of Granges (SO), with the airport of Lugano-Agno and the airport of St-Gall-Altenrhein like at many military aerodromes. The majority of the sites of skyguide with mainly military vocation are: Alpnach, Dübendorf, Emmen, Locarno, Meiringen, Payerne and Sion. To the Airport of the Eplatures, the services of the aerial navigation are delegated to the owner of this airport.

History

January 1st 1931 the Swiss Confederation charged Radio Switzerland SA (RSSA) with the services of the aerial navigation in Switzerland. RSSA was founded on February 23rd, 1922 under the name of Marconi Radio SA in order to develop the Télégraphie without wire after the First World War had shown the importance of this kind of Télécommunication. May 10th, 1928, Marconi Radio SA took for name RSSA in order to underline the Swiss character of the company. Until the end of the Second world war, RSSA above all dealt with the requirements in telegraph collection. It is only from on December 21st, 1948 that RSSA, according to a convention passed with the Confederation, was in charge of the monitoring of the airspace. On the basis of this agreement, the Confederation and the airports support the costs of the services of the aerial navigation. January 1st, 1988, the activities of the services of the aerial navigation of RSSA were restructured and from now on lodged in the official company swisscontrol whose seat was with Bern. In 1996, swisscontrol was converted into a public limit company and its seat transferred to Meyrin close to Geneva where it has since 1998 its own building with the airport of Geneva-Cointrin. At the beginning of 2001, the services of the aerial navigation civil, hitherto separated from the services of military air control, were gathered in a company which took for new name skyguide. Skyguide is thus the first service provider of the aerial navigation in Europe to manage the whole of the airspace of a country. March 15th, 2006, the OFAC prohibited with the company in charge of the services of the aerial navigation skyguide to put in activity in Geneva the control center, entirely Swiss, of management of the higher airspace: “Upper Airspace Control Center Switzerland”. April 3rd, 2006, the report/ratio interns detailed OFAC was presented. It enumerated the coarse failures of skyguide:

It missed decisive evidence attesting the reliability of the new system.
Concerning the design, the development, the tests and the setting in activity of the software, skyguide did not apply any the current methods in industry.
the staff training - that of the air-traffic controllers above all - was not considered to be sufficient.
the project progressed from the start under the strong pressure of time, which influenced negatively the quality of work - especially as regards security management.
a planning in the event of failure or of carryforward of the project was lacking.
the warning statements of the OFAC, which intervened in time, were not taken into account.

Incidents or accidents in the airspace

Flight 2937 of Bashkirian-Airlines: July 1st, 2002, a Tupolev 154 of the Russian airline company Bashkirian Airlines (Republic of the Bachkortostan) and a Boeing 757 of DHL Express train Worldwide entered in collision at an altitude of 12 ' 000 m above Überlingen at the edge of the Lake of Constancy, in the airspace of the south of Germany controlled by skyguide; 71 people lost the life in the crash landing. In February 2004, Peter Nielsen, the controller of the air traffic in service at skyguide the night of the drama was stabbed by Vitali Kaloev, Ossète, one of the close relations of the victims of the catastrophe. In May 2004, the report/ratio of investigation of the German office of investigation into the flight accidents für Flugunfalluntersuchung (BFU) establishes that in addition to the errors of the air-traffic controller mentioned, the pilots of the Russian apparatus, just as the management of skyguide and the Swiss authorities of aviation had played a determining role in the catastrophe.

on February 8th, 2007, above the Annecy Lake, in the airspace in the south of Geneva, a critical bringing together (AIRPROX) took place between a Hercules of the Algerian Air forces and Tupolev of the casaque airline company State Air Company Berkut. According to the recordings radar, the minimal distances from safety were not respected: The two apparatuses approached one the other of approximately 30 meters on the vertical plan and of 740 meters on the horizontal level. Tupolev had received the authorization before to pass from 7300 meters (FL240) to approximately 7900 meters (FL260) while the Hercules flew to the constant altitude of 7600 meters (FL250). During the incident, a raise-controller in service was monitored by an instructor. After the alarm given by the system of warning of air control announcing a conflict to the level of flight 250 (FL250), the instructor has enjoint Tupolev to go up on the level of flight 300 (FL300) with a rate of rise as high as possible.

Bonds Internet

presence of skyguide on Internet
activities of skyguide in connection with the crash landing of Überlingen (pdf)

Articles

Nacktes Chaos EIB kyguide, the OFAC massively the control of the services of the Swiss aerial navigation, NZZ of the Sunday, April 9, 2006 (in German)
Nacht der Kollision, That did it criticizes do without the evening the crash landing? A report established on the basis of exclusive file of the instruction, Das Magazin, May 12th, 2007 (in German)

Notice

This text is a translation of German ()

Sources

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