Midair collisions are probably every pilot’s nightmare. Ever consider … why? They’re massively newsworthy. Two vans full of nuns might run into each other at the Fred Meyer interchange in Covington, and it may or may not make the newspapers in Seattle. But let two Cessnas swap paint in North Carolina … and it’s front-page news all across the United States. “If it bleeds, it leads” is a long-time news media mantra. So midairs get an inordinate amount of time in the daily news cycle. But why are pilots so affected by them? My guess? Other accidents can be traced to errors committed by the pilot, owner, or maintainer. We can sit on our high horses and proclaim, “That’s not a mistake I’ll ever make.” But midairs? We are at the mercy of other pilots. The classic horror movies about the Wolf Man usually feature this charming poem … “Even a man who is pure in heart, And says his prayers by night, May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms, And the moon is full and bright.” Flying? This can be altered to “Even a pilot who is pure at heart and does everything right, might end up getting centerpunched by a B3 (Blind Bozo in a Bonanza).” So, let’s take a look. How much of a risk is it?
We’ll look at the 2008 to 2020 time period, looking at all accidents, not just homebuilts. The NTSB accident database has flags for midairs. I found 289 total aircraft involved in midairs, with 144 total midair events. This includes the foreign accidents that sometimes get listed in the NTSB’s database. (Yes, an odd number of aircraft.)
There were about 22,000 total accidents in the 2008 to 2020 time period. With just 144 midairs, that means that collisions account for less than 0.7% of the accidents. Less than 1%. In 62 of the 144 midairs (~43%), no one was killed. Another 26 saw only one fatality, so there’s better than a 50–50 chance you’ll survive a typical midair. Suddenly, the odds start looking a lot better, don’t they? And some of those accidents were not the kind that get ballyhooed on the news. Fifteen of the midairs involved aircraft trying to fly in formation or as a group flight. These were not just homebuilts … one case was a pair of Cessna 150s, others were warbirds. In a couple of cases, the intent was to take pictures. Other incidents included a couple of balloons bumping together and a few cases of drones bumping into airplanes. Nine midairs involved gliders. In four of the cases, gliders bumped during soaring competitions. Some of the other 144 cases involved powered aircraft in races. So they are not typical general aviation operations. Some of the complaints about midairs try to focus blame on aircraft without radios (NORDO). I flew Pete Bowers’ original Fly Baby NORDO out of Auburn for about seven years. I had one pilot fume, “If you don’t make a radio call, I don’t know you’re there!”
Let me gently suggest that this is not the way things are supposed to work. But let’s look at all those evil NORDO airplanes triggering midair collisions. Of those 144 midairs, nine involved at least one NORDO airplane. One involved two NORDO ultralights. Three cases involved powered parachute aircraft, neither with a radio. Another case involved two crop dusters running into each other while treating two fields. Another involved a glider colliding with its own tow plane. None of these cases involved a collision with a Cessna, Piper, etc.
So of those nine NORDO cases, only three were what we would consider “conventional” NORDO … an antique, classic, or homebuilt aircraft without a radio. They were a pair of floatplanes (Super Cubs) taking off from a lake, a Pitts Special and a Piper Cherokee, and a Taylorcraft and a Cessna 185. That’s three cases in 13 years. So it should be clear that NORDO aircraft aren’t the problem. In any case, it’s certainly not an expanding problem … who builds NORDO airplanes anymore? Even when the airplanes had radios, it’s kind of difficult to establish the degree of communication involved. If the pilots are killed, it’s hard to figure out whether they made position calls. I found definite claims of both parties making position calls in 27 of the 144 cases. In a couple of instances, the pilots admitted they’d dialed in the wrong frequency. In one case, two aircraft were operating from adjacent non-towered fields, talking, it is presumed, on two separate frequencies. Keep in mind that the common traffic advisory frequency (CTAF) at Auburn was changing. How long do you think it took for people to get the word? There were a lot of folks transmitting on 122.8 (the traditional frequency) when they should be on 122.975. Oh, yes. That was fun for people who depend on radios to spot traffic.
Finally, look at the chart above. It summarizes where those 144 midairs occurred, according to the NTSB records. Less than one-third of all midairs happen in the traffic pattern. Once you’re away from the pattern, everybody is NORDO, unless you’re operating in airspace that requires communication with ATC. And even that is not going to save you … six of the 144 midairs occurred at controlled fields. The “Maneuvering” category is interesting. It’s referring to areas away from airports where airplanes might tend to congregate for practice/training. Think of all the FBOs bringing their students to the Enumclaw plateau, for instance. All the hardware … radios, ADS-B, etc. … can help. But they have drawbacks. Used as tools, they’re great. But problems arise when they become crutches. Eyeballs, folks. Use those eyeballs.
“See and avoid” !!!
When I read articles / comments regarding risk management in GA operations many point to cutting edge technology.
The problem with this point of view is ignorance based on inexperience and laziness to employ proven basic flying techniques aiding collision avoidance.
Most GA aircraft have little to offer in terms of technology so safe pilots work tirelessly to see and avoid traffic including birds and drones.
When scanning for traffic we turn and bank, as well as climb and descend actively clearing the area.
We do so even when our aircraft is TAA ( Technically Advanced Aircraft ).
Use all availlable means for safe enjoyable flight.
Do it for safety.
Radios, transponders, GPS, ADS-B, moving maps, tablets, and EC gadgets all help. But they also pull eyes inside, and midairs still happen.
The old see-and-avoid problem was never really solved. We just added more warning boxes. Warning is not separation.
And if you see someone who may be a threat (or may be concerned about you), make it obvious you see them, flashing lights, big wing flashes and if not sure, big observable heading change to remove threat.
I knew two people who would be alive today if they had bothered to use Flight following instead of just their eyeballs. One was a CFI who I had flown with. She always stressed keeping your eyes outside and didn’t like to use Flight following. She and her passenger were killed when they collided head-on with the same make and model Aircraft that had taken off from the same airport that they had 30 miles away. One of my neighbors knew a controller who worked in the Tracon that covered the area where they crashed. According to the controller, they saw the two aircraft heading towards each other and would have warned them if either one had been using Flight following.
Statistics notwithstanding, I’m one of the people who has been in a midair collision. Nobody got hurt, but that’s just pure luck.
The people at greatest risk are CFIs because they spend so much time in the (often busy) pattern.
I wrote a lengthy article about it in 2013.
–Ron
Ron, the message you are sending is: midairs are very rare and even if you are involved in one, there is a 50:50 chance of surviving it so nothing to worry about.
The logic escapes me, especially since the data base you are referring to is flawed: You don’t know how many midairs are not reported to the feds.
I have seen way too many of them and I bet the pilots going down never thought:
“Jeez, this is so rare to die this way”!
Similarly I have seen statements here that belittled relatively rare failure scenarios with the argument:
“Well, that seldom happens but should the engine quit, you always still have your wings to land safely.”
That did’t work so well for many!
You are looking at the safety problem the wrong way: every, even rare opportunity to die should be avoided with respect!
WS
> every, even rare opportunity to die should be avoided with respect!
This is problematic thinking, and arguments like this are why I appreciate Ron’s investigative work.
We all have finite time, energy, and money to spend on safety. Ideally we spend it in accordance with actual risk, but unfortunately that’s not how humans work. There are thousands of missives about the thread of midairs, usually accompanied by wails of how see and avoid doesn’t work, NORDO is a crime, ADSB-out and -in should be mandatory everywhere, and so forth. In the mean time, we’re maiming and killing ourselves in basic maneuvering flight at literally hundreds of times the rate of midair collisions; but the idea of mandating more flight training than a one-hour flight review every two years elicits yawns, and is a total non-starter in the community.
Ron is exactly right: the fixation on midairs comes from the hubris that our greatest risk as aviators is from other pilots. But it ain’t so, it’s right there in the accident data. It follows that spending a bunch of energy on reducing the risk of midair collisions actually hurts us more than it helps. I can only image how much safer we’d be if all the money spent on traffic gizmos was spent on pilot proficiency and aircraft maintenance instead.
Vance, you certainly have the rights to that opinion but this thinking did not work so well for McSpadden (and many others).
Also, IIRC, wasn’t it a midair of two airliners (no 50% survived!) that triggered the development of our current air traffic system?
Lots of people like to gorge themselves on accident reports like some people like crime novels. It does not change the accident rate anymore than it changes the crime rate.
I hope this works out for you.
I’ve been out of the country with spotty access, but Vance pretty much said everything I would have.
I previously wrote an article for Avbrief titled, “The Myths of Misadventures,” where I quoted statistics to show that accidents due to inadvertent entry to IFR conditions and fuel exhaustion happened a lot less than people think. By no means, was I advocating scud running or sucking the last ounce of 100LL out of the tanks.
I wrote this particular article right after a highly-publicized midair involving a NORDO aircraft. There were those on social media immediately clamoring for requiring the radio in all aircraft. Similarly, I attended an airport meeting not long after where a man claimed to have the inside track to the FAA, and the FAA was going to ban all NORDO flight at non-towered airports.
So, looked to determine how bad the problem *really* was, and hence this article.
Got a friend with a very early serial number Bonanza. It’s equipped with very nice curtains to block out the pesky sun (and any opposing traffic) from the steely-eyed pilot.
Not like folks are doing that today.
Yet…I had to expend about a third of my aircraft value on electronics to allow OTHER pilots to keep their heads in the cockpit “looking for traffic.” Several years ago, another pilot was looking to fly into my home field (located close to the Sea-Tac Class B airspace) and asked for advice. I sent him a clip of the Terminal Chart, with a set of lakes and power lines to follow that would keep him clear out of Class B.
His response: He wanted GPS coordinates, not ground landmarks. Maybe he was going to program his autopilot and keep his gaze outside the aircraft….or maybe he was just following the magenta line, the heck with all the other traffic converging on the airport.
I was forced to expend about a third of the value of my airplane so that OTHER pilots could see me on their fish-finders. No help to me. Now they’re talking about me having to add ADS-B In as well as out. Good luck finding a display that’ll show the traffic in my sun-drenched open cockpit…assuming there’s space to install it, which there ain’t.
Electronic tools should be just that, TOOLS, not crutches. A lot of folks don’t have ADS-B out, or radios, or their transponders are broken or they’re on the right frequency.
Don’t confuse your Italians: Airplanes fly by Bernoulli, not Marconi…..
(oh, all right, Bernoulli was Swiss, but still…..)
You nailed it Ron! Tech when it works is a good help– I am told that in medicine the body heals itself–once you rid yourself of the malady. Having a few good tools to identify the problem is just dandy, but it still doesn’t fix it. Use your eyes, ears, sounds and “spidey sense” to complete your picture of S.A. and act accordingly.