China causes chaos in civil aviation in Spain but the government does not ask for explanations

@DefAviation ES 11·04·2022 · 21:16 0

The Chinese communist dictatorship has today caused serious chaos in Spanish airspace, which has mainly affected commercial flights.

The illegal police stations of communist China in Spain and the silence of Sánchez
This is how communist China is whitewashed by media that label conservatives as 'far right'

The uncontrolled fall of a Chinese rocket forced the closure of part of the Spanish airspace

As reported by Controladores Aéreos, remains of the Chinese Long-March rocket 5B have made an uncontrolled re-entry into the atmosphere, something that is becoming a regular habit of the Chinese National Space Administration. This forced the closure of part of the Spanish airspace, due to the risk implied by the overflight of the remains of that rocket over Spain and its possible fall in the Iberian Peninsula. Controladores Aéreos has published this map of the affected areas, covering from Castilla y León to the Balearic Islands:

The Space Surveillance Operations Center (COVE) of the Spanish Air Force has monitored the fall of the remains of the Chinese rocket, pointing out that the last orbit before re-entry into the atmosphere was expected to cross the Iberian Peninsula between 9:50 and 10:05 local time. The rocket has ended up falling into the Pacific Ocean.

ENAIRE, the Spanish air navigation manager, has reported that it had to establish "an airspace exclusion strip of 100 kilometers on both sides of the space object's orbit", following the recommendations of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). The closure occurred between 9:40 a.m. and 10:20 a.m., a time interval in which only emergency aircraft and those of the Spanish Air Force were allowed to fly.

It is already the third Chinese space incident recorded by Spain this year

This incident, the most serious to date, affected more than 300 commercial flights in Spain, with 159 air operations affected by the closure of airspace in Catalonia and 30 in the Balearic Islands.

It so happens that this is not the first incident that Spain has suffered with the Chinese space program. At the end of July, another Chinese rocket made its chaotic re-entry. The same thing happened on June 20, with the re-entry over Spain of the upper stage of the Chinese rocket CZ-2F.

NASA criticizes China for leaving its rockets adrift

The bad habits of the Chinese space agency have already provoked complaints from the rest of the space community. Last summer, NASA criticized China for leaving a rocket out of orbit and adrift: "The People’s Republic of China did not share specific trajectory information as their Long March 5B rocket fell back to Earth", Bill Nelson, the administrator of the NASA, reported. "All spacefaring nations should follow established best practices, and do their part to share this type of information in advance to allow eliable predictions of potential debris impact risk, especially for heavy-lift vehicles, like the Long March 5B, which carry a significant risk of loss of life and property."

The Sánchez government remains silent on these incidents

The most amazing thing is that despite the fact that we have already had three space incidents caused by China over Spain this year, the government of Pedro Sánchez remains silent. It is the same response that the recent scandal over the nine illegal Chinese police stations in Spain, an issue on which the Sánchez government has not made any public statement.

This servile attitude towards China contrasts with that of allied countries. Of course, the difference is, perhaps, in the cordial relations of the Spanish socialists and communists with the Chinese Communist Party. Some relations that included a meeting between Sánchez and the head of the Department of Communication of the Central Committee of the CCP in July 2015 in Madrid, when the current president of the government was in the opposition. Then, China highlighted Sánchez's good relations with the CCP and pointed out that "during the PSOE government, Spain and China established the ties of the comprehensive strategic association."

---

Main photo: Ejército del Aire.