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@dang "Mid air just north of KAPA- all parties OK" is the more appropriate headline on reddit. As an aviator my stress levels are only just coming down now from seeing this headline and clicking expecting there to be deaths.
What is KAPA and do people know what it means?
ATC comms with visualization: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5tb2dVWJqc
The pilot is speaking about failed engine after the collision, like it is nothing. Fascinating. I'd be shouting something obscene in such a situation. For half an hour at least, I think.
It's strange that the planes were supposed to be flying parallel and yet the damage to both planes in the photos suggests a collision at right angles Remarkable that the Metroliner held together, despite that terrible damage, and they landed it safely edit: interesting photo of the landing from the Reddit thread linked elsewhere https://imgur.com/gallery/yKPOWR0
The Cirrus overshot the centerline of the runway it was supposed to land on. The common way for these situations is for the plane to be on an intercept angle towards the centerline. That's a max 30 degree angle for an instrument approach, but this was a visual approach so it could have been a sharper angle. All it takes to make this mistake in a Cirrus (and other G1000 avionics type small airplanes) is to forget 1 bu…
Something else I'd like to point out is that it might seem easy to 'blame the Cirrus' pilot or them call out for inattention, but doing so by itself isn't helpful. Aviation is so safe partly because it has managed to turn a culture of blame into a culture of continuous improvement and shared learning: I'd be very surprised if the airport's procedures came out of this unmodified, for example.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The probability is much higher in terminal airspace because all planes are going to or coming from the airport so they are on converging paths by definition. And better GNSS based navigation equipment is now making it more likely than 20 years ago. The historical accuracy was such that planes where often a bit offset left or right off the route giving extra separation. Now the accuracy is so good that planes going op…
Planes going opposite directions on the same route are meant to be at different altitudes. Altimeters have been quite accurate for a long time.
Oceanic procedure, without radar control, is to turn 45 degrees off track while descending, but it takes a little bit of time to set all that in motion when things go wrong while you were just seconds before happily cruising straight ahead on autopilot (autopilot is mandatory above 29,000 ft in a lot of airspace)
Private Pilot here - just thought I'd chime in quickly; Many aviation enthusiasts / pilots first go to is to have a look at the flight data - usually available on FlightAware / FlightRadar24 and a few other websites, plus LiveATC usually can provide recordings of the flights communications to towers as well. We should refrain from using just those data points to draw conclusions to the cause; the NTSB (and other orgs…
Also, I like the headline including "all parties ok".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was wondering whether there was a mix-up in the crew count, as one pilot with a parachute saves two people and a one-person crew lands the plane. This mostly clears it up.
My less charitable reading was that the pilot abandoned the Cirrus on a parachute, but then it seemed like the plane landed…
They changed this because it turns out that the same phenomenon that leads to private pilots taking undue risks in the rest of flight ("Get-there-itis") also makes them reluctant to pull the chute even when it's clearly their best option. Pilots who clearly couldn't reach a safe landing spot, yet had working CAPS would dig themselves (and their passengers) a grave rather than just pull the handle. So teaching them to start by assuming they'll pull the chute and only then considering whether there are other options reduces the fatality rate.
I was camping near Whistler a few years ago and heard a bang. Looked up and saw falling debris and bodies. A wing landed not far from our campsite. Turns out a glider (low-wing monoplane) was descending and the tow plane (high wing monoplane) was climbing. They were each in each other's blind spots :( Glad to see no fatalities here; I'm an aerospace engineer in the field of airworthiness and technical risk management…
It's just an internal 16 channel GPS receiver with an external antenna and an altimeter that predicts the flight path and then transmits it - including a unique identifier - as low-power digital burst signals at one-second intervals. Other aircraft also equipped with FLARM receive that, compare it with their own flight path prediction, and also check for collision information with known data on obstacles, including electric power lines, radio masts and cable cars, etc. If a proximity warning is generated to one or more aircraft or obstacles, it bleeps like anything and generates bright LEDs that point in the direction of the threat. The display also gives indication of the threat level, plus the horizontal and vertical bearing to the threat -- and there are three warnings (iirc ~30s, ~15s, ~6s) -- it warns by time and not distance.
I remember the thing going off a few times; it's quite helpful and draws your attention to a region of sky immediately, including behind, above and below you. It's also dirt cheap† and is a battery-powered self-contained box with (I suspect) a microcontroller and glorified smartphone innards inside.
†(by aviation standards)
I find it slightly incredible that two planes ever hit each other given the size of planes compared to the volume of space they fly in. I understand that it's simple probability (small planes, big volume, but lots of flights) but it's still amazing that it happens at all.
The probability is much higher in terminal airspace because all planes are going to or coming from the airport so they are on converging paths by definition. And better GNSS based navigation equipment is now making it more likely than 20 years ago. The historical accuracy was such that planes where often a bit offset left or right off the route giving extra separation. Now the accuracy is so good that planes going op…
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gol_Linhas_Aéreas_Flight_1907
[1] https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2009/01/air_crash200901
It's strange that the planes were supposed to be flying parallel and yet the damage to both planes in the photos suggests a collision at right angles Remarkable that the Metroliner held together, despite that terrible damage, and they landed it safely edit: interesting photo of the landing from the Reddit thread linked elsewhere https://imgur.com/gallery/yKPOWR0
The cirrus is the one that makes the mistake.
The 17 runways are quite close laterally (700’) , it may be either way a bad maneuver (overshooting) or chosing the wrong runway.
https://es.flightaware.com/resources/airport/APA/APD/AIRPORT...
The metro was not expecting another traffic in approach for his runway (I understand that they were in different frequencies with different controllers).
During the approach the upper-right side relative angle position in the window of the metro, makes the cirrus hard to spot. I guess he didn’t see the cirrus at all or just barely before the crash.
The cirrus is looking at the runway to his right and the other traffic probably the whole time, the metro is in front of him, so he doesn’t see the Metro till he is on top of him.
Usually with parallel runways, traffics are kept at different altitudes till they are aligned with their runways. This way if they make a mistake, they are separated by 1000’ vertically with the airplane flying parallel.
In this case the cirrus was cleared to visual approach and informed of the cessna he had to follow first. Once he says he has the cessna in sight, he is cleared to visual approach following the cessna. In the same comunication he is informed of the metro flying to the other runway and he replies traffic in sight again.
My guess is that he either has the metro in sight at the beginning and then he forgets about it during the maneuver, or he gives traffic in sight two times.
Thinking that the second part of the message is for the same aircraft (the cessna) he doesn’t even recognize what the controller is telling him about the metro. This is possible if he is too busy flying the maneuver and not paying proper attention to the radio, he hears “cleared for approach” and “traffic” but he mentally don’t really process the information the controller is giving him. A kind of sensory overload.
In airliners we have mandatory TCAS (traffic collision avoidance system) installed that shows you the near traffics in the screen and give you coordinated (between the traffics) automatic avoidance guidance and alarms( one traffic climbs and the other descends or keeps altitude).
In busy airports TCAS maneuver happen relatively often (a handfull of times a year) but nowadays is much harder to have a collision or a close call.
Also when two pilots are in the cockpit (like airliners) it’s easier that one is concentrated in flying and the other in the communications. It’s very common to correct and be corrected all the time during the flight.
It will be interesting to read the official report.
Edit: Kudos to the Metro pilot who was super calmed in the radio while declaring emergency and landing the plane. That is really difficult.
Edit 2: correcting the airport , KAPA (I talked about KDEN initially which has the same runways but with a bigger separation). This does make a difference regarding the mistake.
Thank you Denvercoder9 for the heads up.