SYNOPSIS
On Monday 3 July, 2000, circa 0348 hours, a Swissair MD-11 aircraft, callsign SWR 127, reported a near miss with another aircraft, identified as an American Airlines B767, callsign AAL 176. The event occurred at 050N 013W in the Shannon Oceanic Transition Area (SOTA) (Annex A), approximately 210 nautical miles South West of the Cork VOR. SOTA is a designated Reduced Vertical Separation Minima (RVSM) area. SWR 127 was en route from Boston to Zurich and maintaining Flight Level (FL) 320. AAL 176 was en route from JFK, New York, to Frankfurt and, at the time of the event, was climbing from FL 290 to FL 370, having received clearance from Shannon Radar. The aircraft commander of SWR 127 had been observing AAL 176 to his left and below him for more than five minutes when he got the impression that it had started climbing. This was confirmed by warnings on his Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS). He immediately turned his aircraft 10º to his right and observed AAL 176 climbing through his assigned level, within 0.5 nautical miles (NM) of his left wing.
