Air Seychelles in near miss with Emirates |18 July 2017

An Air Seychelles plane almost collided with an Emirates plane over the island of Mauritius on the evening of Friday July 14, 2017.

Air Seychelles has commended captain Roberto Vallicelli and Seychellois first officer Ronny Morel who were operating the HM054 flight from Mauritius to Seychelles on the evening of Friday July 14, 2017. 

A statement from an Air Seychelles spokesperson said “their training standard and operating protocols immediately kicked in which demonstrates the extremely high standards of training which our Air Seychelles pilots attain.  We highly commend them for what they have done”.

According to reports, Emirates 703 (EK703) an Airbus A380-861 from Dubai (DXB) to Mauritius (MRU) was cruising at an altitude of 40,000 feet before requesting descent to Mauritius for runway 14. Air Seychelles 054 (HM054) an Airbus A330-243 was leaving Mauritius for Seychelles and given clearance by Mauritius ATC to climb and maintain 37,000 feet. Upon requesting descent, EK703 was given clearance to descend and maintain 38,000 feet due to crossing HM054 at time 13:07 (UTC). EK703 read back flight level 360 (36,000 feet) to Mauritius ATC instead of flight level 380 (38,000 feet).