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So, the lesson from this incident seems to still be misconstrued: "Part of the problem was that the system by which such changes make their way around the world is very slow-moving. Japanese investigators would have had to issue a recommendation to the International Civil Aviation Organization; ICAO would then have had to adopt the new guidance; this guidance would have to have been propagated to signatory nations; those nations would have had to agree to adopt the new wording into their own regulatory systems; and then the new concept would have had to be passed on to pilots during recurrent training. Even if ICAO had immediately begun proceedings to clarify the relative precedence of TCAS resolution advisories and ATC commands (which it does not seem they did), it’s not clear that the changes would have reached the Bashkirian Airlines crew in time to prevent the accident. This is especially true considering that Russia’s TCAS-related regulations already diverged even from the original, flawed ICAO guidance. On the other hand, had the two planes actually collided, almost assuredly resulting in the deaths of an unprecedented 677 people"

This seems to be the problem rather than "Part of the problem". Putting the blame on a lack of "safety culture" and "risk assessment" at an ATC, but also claim that the TCAS is to be the final authority over ATC is contradiction. The necessity to consider air jet traffic in a probabilistic or nondeterministic collision environment would also imply that a system such as TCAS would benefit from stating probabilities with courses of action. Otherwise, operating procedures get defined where deterministic rules can be followed to prevent collisions. A nation's regulations do not apply when operating in foreign airspace. It would be helpful to know what steps if any ICAO has taken to address the guidance issue.

This story is well written and simply devastating.
I lived in Owingen when this happened. I saw the planes falling, burning pieces. We didn't now what it was, for a second I thought it was a meteor or a rocket. I was 16, school was canceled. The gym of the local primary school became the mortuary for the remains of the victims. Many of my friends found body parts in their backyards. Reading this story made me realize how deeply I buried these moments to never think about it again. It is an unbelievable tragedy. Thanks for writing this up, it helped me to gain some perspective.