Claim Boeing planes nearly collided at 37,000ft denied by Emirates

Aviation authorities in the breakaway region of Somaliland have accused Somalia of negligence over an alleged near-miss collision between two passenger planes flying at 37,000ft over east Africa.

But the incident has been denied by Emirates, which the Somaliland civil aviation and airports authority said was one of the carriers involved in the incident, along with Ethiopian Airlines.

The claim comes amid an ongoing dispute over control of the Horn of Africa airspace, in which Somaliland and Somalia have accused each other of disrupting airspace operations and communication.

According to Somaliland, an Emirates Boeing 777 and Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max “almost collided” on Sunday when both aircraft were told to fly at the same altitude by air traffic controllers in the Somali capital of Mogadishu.

The authority said on X – formerly Twitter – that a crash was averted after “efforts made by the Somaliland air traffic controllers and the pilot of the Ethiopian Airlines caused the pilot to quickly change his altitude and climb to 39,000ft”.

It criticised air traffic controllers in Mogadishu, saying they “regularly make mistakes like these, which are a threat to the safety of international flights”.

Emirates denied the reports, saying on Wednesday that all of its aircraft are “equipped with capabilities to maintain safe separation and distance during operations”.

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“Emirates can confirm that there was no instance of an aircraft proximity event compromising the safety of the aircraft over the airspace and during the date and time in question,” the airline said, according to Gulf News.

Somalia and Ethiopia, which are also engaged in an escalating diplomatic rift, have not commented on the incident.

It comes a month after Somaliland reported another close call between Qatar Airways and Ethiopian Airlines in the same airspace.

It said a Qatar Boeing 787-8 was flying at 38,000ft on 24 February when it was “wrongly told by the controllers in Mogadishu” to climb to 40,000ft while it was facing the Ethiopian Airbus A350 travelling along the same route at 39,000ft.

The traffic collision avoidance system on the Qatar aircraft gave an urgent warning to alert the pilots of the oncoming plane, prompting them to descend, the Somaliland aviation authority added.

“The planes were at a dangerous distance from each other,” it claimed after the incident.

The Somali civil aviation authority denied the report and labelled it “fake news”, according to the Somalia-based independent news website Garowe Online. The incident has not been reported by Qatar or Ethiopia, the site noted.

The affected airspace is one of the main and most direct routes between the Middle East and Asia into Africa, according to the flight tracking website Flightradar24.

Tensions have risen after Somaliland, which has not gained widespread international recognition, signed a pact with Ethiopia on 2 January allowing it to use a major port with access to the Red Sea in return for recognition as an independent state.

Somalia, which views Somaliland as part of its territory, rejected the agreement, saying it had no legal force.

On 17 January, the Somali civil aviation authority said it had denied an Ethiopian Airlines plane entry into its airspace because it did not have “the necessary permissions”. Bloomberg reported that the plane heading to Somaliland’s capital Hargeisa had been carrying Ethiopian officials.

The reported near mid-air collisions add to growing concern over air safety in the region, with Africa seeing the highest accident rate in 2023 at 6.38 per one million flights, compared with 0.48 in Europe, according to the International Air Transport Association.

“A lot of it is to do with pilot training and to do with the wealth of the country, where they haven’t got the infrastructure, the air traffic control systems and the airports are substandard,” aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas previously told i.

“Unfortunately in Africa, there are a lot of countries that aren’t that wealthy, therefore you don’t have the navigation systems.”

In 2019, an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737-8 Max crashed just minutes after taking off from the flag carrier’s capital Addis Ababa, killing all 157 passengers and crew on board.