One person died and three others were injured when an Extra 300 and Cessna 172M collided on the final approach to Runway 14 at Fort Morgan Municipal Airport on Sunday. Aviation Safety Network is reporting that ADS-B data shows the Extra was turning left base to final while the Cessna was on a straight-in approach when they came together, caught fire and crashed. Fort Morgan is non-towered airport with a CTAF/Unicom, but approach and departure control services are provided by Denver Center. Two people on the Cessna survived as did one of two occupants of the Extra.
The 172 was one of two owned by the Bell Ornithopters Flying Club based at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport outside Denver and the Extra was owned by an LLC in Castle Rock, Colorado.
Straight ins and base legs, the base leg is usually looking in the direction of their turn and not as likely to be closely looking at the final in the other direction. Nothing wrong with either except the straight in needs to communicate, communicate, communicate. I almost got zapped by a straight in a few years ago. While on base, I did not see a low fast straight in. His only communications was a smart ass, “Hey, are you trying to hit me out here?” I then saw him and said no I’ll pull up and go around. End of discussion. That was his very first call anywhere near the airport.
Straight ins at non towered airports are strongly discouraged by the FAA in the latest advisory circular. Aside from that, they are a really bad idea. Just join the pattern on the 45, only takes a few minutes and could save lives.
Who doesn’t check final when turning base? Even at towered airports I always check final on base leg during visual approaches. In a low wing especially you cannot keep a steady turn to final from downwind because your up wing will hide traffic on final. You must level the wings on base long enough to allow a “Final is clear” check.
My experience is long finals are planes on instrument approaches and often do not have Unicom tuned in until inside the VRF pattern. I watch diligently for planes on long finals at my uncontrolled field.
If you check the Extra’s flight path on FlightAware, you’ll see it wasn’t flying anything near a normal traffic pattern. If the two pilots weren’t talking, there’s no way for the 172 pilot to have had a good expectation of what the Extra pilot was doing, while one should always be visually checking back up final while on base leg (good on ya for that, pal!). We’ll see what the survivors have to say, or maybe the CTAF was recorded.
https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/N330AN
As for switching from approach to CTAF at nontowered airports, the ATC is supposed to get you switched before you hit the FAF, which is well outside the traffic pattern area. If a controller doesn’t switch me to CTAF by the FAF, I’m going to announce my departure from the approach freq and switch myself. If the controller doesn’t like that, I’ll refer them to 14 CFR 91.3(b) when I call in later to cancel IFR.
Thanks for the flightaware track Ron. It looks like the extra was giving rides and from the flightpaths any aircraft in the vicinity of FMM during a ride sure needed to keep a sharp lookout. Quite often there appears to be aerobatics in the pattern. What’s amazing is that 3 of the four people involved in the midair survived.