Any near miss stories?

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AviatorCrafty
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Any near miss stories?

Post by AviatorCrafty »

Went flying today, had originally planned to fly to another airport but due to getting to the airport late I just decided to do touch and go's instead. First few laps were great, and it was cold out, so with just me on board I was getting 1700 FPM climbs. On my fourth lap I had just touched down and was raising my flaps and applying power to takeoff again, after lift-off I was climbing and at ~700 feet I heard over CTAF that a plane was going to fly over the field to enter the downwind, so looking over to my right to see them I immediately noticed they were on a direct collision course with me and had to be about 50 feet above me, still climbing I immediately dove to avoid a collision and no sooner than I dove they flew over me. I immediately asked over CTAF how high they were and they said "1000 feet following procedure to enter the downwind" I thought to myself no you're supposed to be a bare minimum of 500 feet over pattern altitude, 1000 feet pattern altitude feet in this case so 1500 feet minimum. I shook it off and did some more landings and when I went to check the plane back in the dispatchers told me how everyone in the FBO saw it unfold and how close we were, still glad I'm here but a learning experience for sure.
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Re: Any near miss stories?

Post by Warmi »

1C903350-E509-4D94-AE60-6CF7D3D5E60C.jpeg
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Maybe they were following the other “ alternate “ entry ...
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Re: Any near miss stories?

Post by AviatorCrafty »

Seems like it, but I hadn't even reached pattern altitude yet and they were at the same altitude as me. I was expecting him to be at least 500 above since I was taught regardless of how you do it to add some altitude, but glad I saw him
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Re: Any near miss stories?

Post by drseti »

I presented an EAA webinar about four years ago titled "Anatomy of a Near Midair Collision." Video is posted to:

http://avsport.org/webinars/videos/nmac.mp4
The opinions posted are those of one CFI, and do not necessarily represent the FAA or its lawyers.
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Re: Any near miss stories?

Post by designrs »

We are constantly learning. Usually, it’s a chain of events that cause an accident, not just one factor.

* I learned something, “Crossing Midfield” will always trigger a memory of your near miss!

Definitely NOT faulting you at all (Good job saving your bacon!) but what can be learned from this?
Sometimes the pattern is like riding a motorcycle; you have to assume that everyone is trying to kill you, and reduce that risk!

If the other plane was crossing midfield to downwind, 1000’ might have been appropriate.
This is a great example for why to use +500 and teardrop to downwind. So much fun too!

Were there earlier traffic calls from the other aircraft?

How vocal were you during touch & goes?

Was it a high-wing and low-wing traffic combo?

Do you have an ADS-B In traffic display? This provides amazing traffic awareness.

How do increased climb rates on cold days change your pattern “hotspots?” Were you significantly higher by midfield?

What if you were that plane on top on a cold day?
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Re: Any near miss stories?

Post by FastEddieB »

My closest call was at Opa Locka back in the late '70's.

I was in the back seat of my Citabria with a student in the front. We had just taken off from RWY 9L and had been cleared by the tower for a left downwind departure and were climbing on crosswind.

Suddenly a helicopter passed over us, coming from the right rear. Close enough we felt the thump of the downwash at the moment he zoomed into view above us. Memory is fallible, but in my mind's eye now he was maybe 20' above us. Whew!

Observations:

1) Every aircraft has blind spots, and short of radical maneuvering they can be nearly impossible to avoid. If you've been in the back seat of a Citabria, Champ or Cub, its a lot like being in a cave, and your chances of seeing someone closing from the rear and above are practically nil.

2) Never relax even one iota just because you're talking to a tower or other controller. They're generally quite competent, but they're also human.

3) Tragically, a short time thereafter two helicopters under tower control at Opa Locka collided, killing 5.There but for the grace of God...

http://www.gendisasters.com/florida/126 ... n-jan-1979
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Re: Any near miss stories?

Post by 3Dreaming »

I used to fly a pipeline patrol. It was a 200 mile stretch with about a 40 mile flight to get to the starting end and a 200 mile flight home. On the flight home since I wasn't patrolling I could go to altitude, which I often did on hot summer days. One day I was cruising along at 6500 feet on a heading of about 182°. It was hazy to say the least, with 5 or less miles forward visibility. I met a 2 place Pitts that passed less than 50 foot off my left wing tip at the same altitude. I suspect he was on a heading of somewhere between 355° and 360°. We were both on the correct altitude, but closing almost head on at around 270 MPH. By the time I saw him I had no time to react, and I don't know if he even saw me.
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Re: Any near miss stories?

Post by drseti »

That was exactly the scenario of the NMAC I experienced 4 yrs ago, reported in my EAA webinar (referenced above). I was northbound, the A36 Bonanza was southbound at same (legal) cruising altitude of 6500 feet. I was cruising around 100 kts, and he around 200, so we closed really fast! Result was an aggressive maneuver on my part, resulting in a cracked canopy from the wake turbulence. It all happened in an instant. I had twelve seconds at most from first sighting to what would have been a midair collision. The Bonanza never saw me.

Shortly after the repair, I installed ADSB in and out!
The opinions posted are those of one CFI, and do not necessarily represent the FAA or its lawyers.
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Re: Any near miss stories?

Post by designrs »

drseti wrote:Shortly after the repair, I installed ADSB in and out!
^^—- THIS!

“See and Avoid” and Flight Following (which does not guarantee separation) are severely limited; I’m not saying that they aren’t useful, but they are both severely limited.

Even in Class Delta, I’ve had numerous direct traffic conflicts that I corrected for in advance thanks to ADS-B, only to have the tower call traffic out as the aircraft were blowing by each other.

Now with mandatory ADS-B Out, self-awareness of traffic using ADS-B In is better than ever... and it can be as simple as a Stratus and ForeFlight (or similar) with no LOA required... and completely portable if you rent aircraft. RAM Mounts are awesome!
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Re: Any near miss stories?

Post by AviatorCrafty »

To address a few of the questions:

1) Yes, the plane I was flying had ADS-B out, however for some reason the traffic wouldn't display on the G3X in this particular plane when it did in another one in the rental P92s in the fleet with the exact same avionics setup. Didn't want to mess with it since I was always scanning even if I did have it on.

2) Everytime I would lift of I would say "[My tail number] is on the go runway 34"

3) Yeah the scan I had then will be twice as intensive now
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Re: Any near miss stories?

Post by AviatorCrafty »

designrs wrote:We are constantly learning. Usually, it’s a chain of events that cause an accident, not just one factor.

* I learned something, “Crossing Midfield” will always trigger a memory of your near miss!

Definitely NOT faulting you at all (Good job saving your bacon!) but what can be learned from this?
Sometimes the pattern is like riding a motorcycle; you have to assume that everyone is trying to kill you, and reduce that risk!

If the other plane was crossing midfield to downwind, 1000’ might have been appropriate.
This is a great example for why to use +500 and teardrop to downwind. So much fun too!

Were there earlier traffic calls from the other aircraft?

How vocal were you during touch & goes?

Was it a high-wing and low-wing traffic combo?

Do you have an ADS-B In traffic display? This provides amazing traffic awareness.

How do increased climb rates on cold days change your pattern “hotspots?” Were you significantly higher by midfield?

What if you were that plane on top on a cold day?

So we were both high wings and the pattern entry they were using, it seemed to be the one where you overfly the field and then turn directly into the downwind, but I was always told that was for when there was maybe no more than one other plane in the pattern and to even then still fly at +500, I was alongside three in the pattern at the time. Now that you mentioned hotspots I realize I never really considered that, with the lightly loaded plane and cold temps I climbed like a rocket (I saw 1700 FPM at one point) and would sometimes reach pattern altitude about midfield, this is something I'll consider in the future.
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Re: Any near miss stories?

Post by Mikey B »

Had a slightly different pattern near-miss while solo training for my PPL back in the '70s. I was approaching the usual Unicom callout spot (over a water tower) to enter the pattern at the old Glendale airport near Phoenix (long gone now), and announced my intentions as I'd been taught. Over the radio came a voice asking "hey, do you two guys over the water tower see each other?" I learned later that it was someone waiting to take off, with a great view of whatever was about to happen. In a bit of a panic, I looked around as best I could, saw nothing, identified myself to the voice on the ground, and it became apparent that the other plane was above me, and still silent (and in my C152 I couldn't see him above). Not knowing his intentions, I exited the pattern carefully, circled around for another try, and landed uneventfully.

I never found out what the other plane was doing, but as I told my flight instructor the tale, he explained that being in a popular retirement area, there were a number of older retired military guys who used the airport, some of whom didn't feel the need to tell anyone else their intentions, and/or preferred to ignore pattern protocol and just take a straight-in long final from wherever. Needless to say, I was cautious-verging-on-paranoid in that pattern thereafter.

Sadly, there was a midair around that time over Scottsdale airport. If I recall correctly, one plane was following another on final, decided it was too close and decided to overfly the runway. The plane in front did a touch-and-go, came up underneath the other, and no one made it home. (My details could be fuzzy on that one, but the story stuck with me.)
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Re: Any near miss stories?

Post by Nomore767 »

Have to say the addition of ADS-B in/out has made a big difference. Good to see many targets on the screen many with altitude, squawk, and even N#, flight #, and transponder code. Altitude and climbing/descending trend is really useful, such that you can maneuver appropriately especially if the other aircraft doesn't see you. It frees up time to look for unknown aircraft.

I generally fly higher these days to avoid a lot of GA and being retired I prefer to fly weekdays when there is less local traffic.

Years ago on final with a student at a tower controlled field a Grumman from another school descended over me going faster and landed ahead, missing us by a matter of feet. No radio transmissions and the tower didn't see him as we were so close. He was also the owner and chief instructor at his school, go figure. Never even answered the tower's request to call them.

Recently a Cherokee departed ahead of me announcing the same direction enroute except he departed on the opposite heading, on a hugely modified right down wind. We have left traffic patterns. I've heard him many times announce the opposite position, and the wrong heading.
All the way I noticed we were on converging paths. I climbed, he climbed. I descended , he descended. I figured he was going towards a field I would overfly, so I turned away 90 degrees and descended. For some inexplicable reason, he suddenly turned and descended rapidly towards me,raising my hackles, and despite my maneuvering aggressively he came by me closer than Id like. I swear he was aiming for me, but as he flew by he was close enough for me to see he was heads down wearing a red baseball cap. I've no idea what he was doing.

Not long ago a guy flew me home in his CTLS after I dropped off my RV-12 for service.First, and last, time I ever flew with him.
He was very into his clipboard and writing on it, and put the autopilot on very soon after take-off. It stayed on and as it was quiet at home field I figured I'd see what he'd do next. With a/p on we flew over the field at 1500' right through the pattern. I asked him if he knew where we were and he looked up from his clipboard, saw the field and said I'd better land. Chopped the power, and dived around the base leg to land, with me extremely close to taking the controls. Ive since seen him take off down wind several times as other traffic are landing the other way, but he went to another field before I could have a quiet word with him.
But not before he taxied his CTLS into the fuel pumps and about totaled it.

Be careful out there!
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Re: Any near miss stories?

Post by designrs »

We were flying into one of the busiest training airports in Florida, Vero Beach. My buddy was a PPL and ATC Controller Certified so I let him do the comms in the right seat. ATC asked us “to stay out of their airspace (Delta) and call them up again in 15 minutes.” Wow! These guys are busy!

So we dropped out of a scattered layer and went sightseeing on the coast.
15 minutes later we called up Vero Beach and entered their Delta.

We were asked to yield to traffic on downwind.
I first saw the downwind aircraft on ADS-B, I slowed to 60 kts.
We then saw the aircraft visually and watched it pass safely in front of us.
We then landed on a shorter runway without incident.

Not really a near-miss story, but ADS-B is great for this stuff.

Meanwhile ATC totally lost it with some foreign students:
“THAT’S IT! I’ve had it! You guys don’t want to listen to me? How ‘bout I just let you do whatever you like, and you all figure it out!”
OMG!!
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Re: Any near miss stories?

Post by Sundancer »

Mid-airs in cruise are rare as hens' teeth; it's just not a statistically likely event. I imagine most/almost all cruise-flight "near misses" would have been "misses" regardless of pilots taking action, or not. VFR fLight following has some value, but for me, not enough to bother with.

At uncontrolled fields on nice days, weekends particularly, I do get antsy; ADS-B is near useless at times, when it's very busy. I find the radio calls and my eyeballs better suited for avoidance in tight quarters. One field I've used has a large fraction of airplanes without electrical systems. Need to be looking outside in that pattern, or using a different airport.

Crossing Chesapeake bay I encountered a 182 head-on, maybe 50 or less to one side; I could see he was wearing a Dave Clark headset. And his head was down and locked. I think I didn't see him earlier because there was little-to-no relative motion. Anyway, we passed very close, but we wouldn't have merged. I guess that's a near-miss, but my intuition is I've probably had others I just wasn't aware of. The sky is big and our airplanes are small.

ADS-B sort of sucks as a traffic avoidance tool, which isn't the intent, anyway. For GA, personally I find it of marginal value, certainly not worth upwards of $10B, plus the cost to GA aircraft owners. It serves ATC/FAA interests far more than GA. Clearly it has value for commercial/airlines, and saving the FAA money over time, though I don't know what the payback period is. I'd take any payback numbers form the FAA with a grain (bucket) of salt.
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