The Swiss air traffic controller on duty when two jets crashed in mid-air two weeks ago, killing 71 people, acknowledged today that errors in the traffic control network contributed to the disaster.
"On the night of the accident I was part of a network of people, computers, surveillance and communications equipment, and regulations," the unidentified controller said in a statement sent to Swiss news agency SDA.
"All these pieces must work together seamlessly and without error and be coordinated to one another. The tragic accident shows that errors cropped up in this network," he added.
"As an air traffic controller it is my duty and responsibility to prevent such accidents," he said.
He promised full cooperation with investigators investigating the July 1st crash near the Swiss-German border in which a Russian passenger jet carrying dozens of children to a beach holiday and a DHL cargo plane collided.
"This means giving the authorities complete information about what happened before the crash so that the network can be set up in the future in such a way that the errors that emerged cannot be repeated," he said.
He said he had already spoken with German officials leading the inquiry and had full confidence they would be objective in their work.
The controller, who went into shock after the jets went down, was not named.
Investigators say the controller was monitoring two radar screens and two radio frequencies alone while his partner took a break given relatively light traffic close to midnight.
Swiss controllers said their collision alert system was out of action for maintenance, and work on their telephones meant a warning call from German colleagues never got through.
German investigators have established that the Russian pilot was told by Swiss air traffic control to descend barely a second after his onboard computer told him to climb to avoid a collision with the cargo plane flying at the same altitude.
The Boeing's computer told its pilot to dive. The Russian pilot followed the controller's command and both planes slammed into each other as they descended over Ueberlingen, Germany.