The thirty‑five‑thousand‑foot altitude put them on a collision clock

Aviation Survival Stories · Aug 29, 2026 · 16m

A humanitarian C-141 and a German Tu-154 converged at 35,000 ft over the South Atlantic with no traffic warnings-did anyone make it in time?

The thirty‑five‑thousand‑foot altitude put them on a collision clock

In this episode, we lay out the sequence of a midair disaster: two military transports, their missions and crews, and the safety systems that should have kept them apart. As the story unfolds, one question hangs over every decision and omission: could the documented failures alone have set a collision in motion?

Date: 13 September 1997

Location: South Atlantic, 65 nautical miles off…