2012-03 · NASA ASRS report 997899
TRACON Controller described a TCAS RA event after traffic separated by VFR requirements and having one another in sight took evasive action; the Controller questioning TCAS responses when involved traffic has one another in sight.
A BE1900 was enroute. A helicopter was crossing northeast bound (right to left) at 105; VFR. Traffic was issued multiple times to the BE1900. The helicopter was being worked by an adjacent Approach Control. The Developmental issued a 20 degree turn to the BE1900 to avoid the aircraft crossing and the potential for a TCAS event. The BE1900 could not hear the Controller instructions over the TCAS Alert in the cockpit. The BE1900 replied that they were responding to a TCAS RA and were climbing. The BE1900 climbed to approximately 115 before resuming ATC instructions. While TCAS is an extremely useful tool; the air carriers have to change their regulations whereby a pilot must comply with an RA; especially in instances where visual separation is being applied or when a Controller has aircraft properly separated. This is an almost daily occurrence in our area. Further; TCAS equipment should never be so loud as to drown out a Controller's instructions. This could have been a much worse event if circumstances were different.
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.
Loading the flight search…
Pick an aircraft model — Boeing 737, Airbus A320, A380, Boeing 787 Dreamliner and more — enter your origin airport, and FlightFinder shows every route that plane flies from there with live fares.
We support Boeing 737/747/757/767/777/787, the full Airbus A220/A319/A320/A321/A330/A340/A350/A380 family, Embraer E170/E175/E190/E195, Bombardier CRJ and Dash 8, and the ATR 42/72 turboprops.
Search and schedules are free. Pro ($4.99/month, $39/year, or $99 one-time lifetime) unlocks the enriched flight card — on-time stats, CO₂ per passenger, amenities, live gate & weather — plus My Trips with push alerts.
Live schedules come from Amadeus, AeroDataBox and Travelpayouts. Observed routes (which aircraft actually flew a given city pair) are crowdsourced from adsb.lol ADS-B data under the Open Database License.