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A LEADING air safety expert is warning of a serious flaw in the risk analysis undertaken before rules were changed to halve the vertical distance between planes flying over Europe. He says this means the risks of flying in European airspace are not as low as the public is being led to believe.

The warning comes from Peter Ladkin, a computer scientist specialising in dependable systems at the University of Bielefeld in Germany. He says that Eurocontrol, the pan-European air traffic control organisation, failed to take into account a clutch of air incidents and accidents involving sharp changes of altitude.…

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