MidAir at Centennial Airport Cirrus and Metroliner

I looked up N65251 on FlightAware. It looks like the student was on his fourth lap around the pattern. I’m imagining the first few started out with the usual first solo feelings: wow, it’s lonesome in here. The plane climbs a lot better than usual. The pattern is busy today!

Then you get used to it. Ho hum, this is fun but I’m ahead of the plane and the pattern is starting to feel boring.

Then the Cirrus you were following on downwind overshoots final, blows a giant hole in a Metroliner, and pulls chute.

No way would I have sounded that calm if I witnessed a midair during my first solo.
 
SoonerAviator said:
Yup. Tapatalk doesn't play well with copy/pasted images. If you were viewing the forum on the iPad web browser, the pics should show up.
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Yep, usually use Tapatalk with IPad or iPhone. Next time I will try browser if pics don’t work


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
SoonerAviator said:
I love that the guy recording the video of the Cirrus is just watching it come out of the sky instead of rushing out to provide assistance. It couldn't have been more than a few hundred yards from him.
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Very unfortunate modern trend. Or taking a video of a mass murderer shooting at people in a nightclub instead of grabbing everything nearby and throwing at him and rushing him while he is distracted.
 
Torque beast said:
Yep, usually use Tapatalk with IPad or iPhone. Next time I will try browser if pics don’t work


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Yeah just hit browser view in the top right corner of the post and it’ll open Safari for any problematic stuff.
 
Torque beast said:
Yep, usually use Tapatalk with IPad or iPhone. Next time I will try browser if pics don’t work


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Correction, More menu then Web View.
df1eb011995000445d4a6cc55c94096f.jpg
 
iamtheari said:
I’m leaning toward just plain overshooting final for 17R. But it is also possible he had an expectation bias for 17L since he had flown out and done some kind of a city tour before returning to the pattern at KAPA.
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At 150 plus knots, it would be pretty easy to overshoot unless he was flying a very wide downwind.
 
Can I get a post number with an image that does not display in tapatalk? I want to make sure the problem isn't on PoA's side :)
 
schmookeeg said:
Can I get a post number with an image that does not display in tapatalk? I want to make sure the problem isn't on PoA's side :)
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Post 1 for me. Tapatalk Pro, iphone xr, current iOS release 14.something

090958ef45e1b2c351be9e8965c1b0fa.png
 
For me post #1, which was quoted in post 2. But I also can’t see those on a win10 pc in edge. But then post 3 I can’t see in TT but can see it on the pic. Weird.
 
For me post #1, which was quoted in post 2. But I also can’t see those on a win10 pc in edge.
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Get the big red "X" on Post #1 using Firefox on Windows 7.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Post #1 is from pasting a facebook page link as an image. It's broken for me too on my devices.

If @skyking3286 wants to edit it, it would mean editing the post and changing this:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10225423630237118&set=p.10225423630237118&type=3

to this:

https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.ne...=003d42ea8ffaec9eede272beb5785a01&oe=60C21613

For those with FOMO on post #1, the image is this one. :)

185431517_10225423630277119_5062559772100733084_n.jpg


#3 seems tapatalk-specific and was what I wanted to track down, thanks all. :)

(back to armchair midair analysis... sorry for the detour :D )
 
As far as the speed, we're seeing ground speed. At that altitude, you're looking at around 14 or 15 kts between IAS and TAS. Then add any tailwind.
 
In any event sounds like the cirrus pilot popped the chute as soon as they heard metal crunching. Which worked in their favor. Low altitude is not the place for indecisiveness.

What’s the lowest AGL you can pop and get full effect??
 
benyflyguy said:
In any event sounds like the cirrus pilot popped the chute as soon as they heard metal crunching. Which worked in their favor. Low altitude is not the place for indecisiveness.

What’s the lowest AGL you can pop and get full effect??
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Depending on the model year about 500 ft..
 
Tantalum said:
Depending on the model year about 500 ft..
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I had an instructor who pulled at about 300 feet and walked away. It depends on the situation whether it works that low. In this case, judging from the damage to the Cirrus, it probably was the only option, regardless of altitude. Superior airplane handling skills probably was not going to save them. It had to have been a pull with in seconds of impact, good on whichever one of them pulled.
 
denverpilot said:
He didn’t even know he’d been hit, he interpreted the right yaw on final as losing the right engine and declared and landed.
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Infreakincredible.... I wonder what he thought when he turned and saw the big gaping hole in the plane...

I had the airstair drop open on a Navajo right at rotation. The plane did a big yaw to the left and I thought I had been hit by a car. I was ****ed thinking someone had run into me until all the dust started circulating throughout the plane, and I saw the annunciator light on.
 
benyflyguy said:
In any event sounds like the cirrus pilot popped the chute as soon as they heard metal crunching. Which worked in their favor. Low altitude is not the place for indecisiveness.

What’s the lowest AGL you can pop and get full effect??
Click to expand...
Generally it says 400 AGL but chute pulls have been successful lower. It's not a pull like a skydiver. That chute is rocketed out of the airplane and opens quickly.
 
Doubt winds played a factor. Here are the preceding and following METARs:

METAR KAPA 121653Z 00000KT 10SM FEW080 FEW140 10/M01 A3027 RMK AO2 SLP249 T01001006=
METAR KAPA 121753Z VRB03KT 10SM FEW050 FEW080 12/M01 A3027 RMK AO2 SLP241 T01221011 10122 20000 57004=

Pretty calm by any standards, and downright dead compared by APA standards where 20G33 is good student solo weather.
 
iamtheari said:
I’m leaning toward just plain overshooting final for 17R. But it is also possible he had an expectation bias for 17L since he had flown out and done some kind of a city tour before returning to the pattern at KAPA.
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Or he can't tell left from right.
 
I’m still amazed it stayed together. Must be very solid build on the bottom half


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
The critical moment here seems to be when the Cirrus reported the Keylime in sight. Did he really have him in sight, or was thinking of the Cessna traffic, or did he just spot him on his ADS-B display? I guess this should be relatively easy to resolve since everyone lived.
In any case, this illustrates the hazards of parallel runway operations for visual approaches. Even with radar this can be dicey but APA is a non-radar tower, so that didn't help either.
 
flyingron said:
Doubt winds played a factor. Here are the preceding and following METARs:

METAR KAPA 121653Z 00000KT 10SM FEW080 FEW140 10/M01 A3027 RMK AO2 SLP249 T01001006=
METAR KAPA 121753Z VRB03KT 10SM FEW050 FEW080 12/M01 A3027 RMK AO2 SLP241 T01221011 10122 20000 57004=

Pretty calm by any standards, and downright dead compared by APA standards where 20G33 is good student solo weather.
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Any idea what the wind was at 1000agl?
 
sarangan said:
The critical moment here seems to be when the Cirrus reported the Keylime in sight. Did he really have him in sight, or was thinking of the Cessna traffic, or did he just spot him on his ADS-B display? I guess this should be relatively easy to resolve since everyone lived.
In any case, this illustrates the hazards of parallel runway operations for visual approaches. Even with radar this can be dicey but APA is a non-radar tower, so that didn't help either.
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It shouldn’t be that hard but we are a creative bunch

as an aside if anyone on here is looking at a cockpit display when a controller is asking if traffic is in sight for the purposes of sequence in terminal airspace, please stop.
 
iamtheari said:
I’m leaning toward just plain overshooting final for 17R. But it is also possible he had an expectation bias for 17L since he had flown out and done some kind of a city tour before returning to the pattern at KAPA.
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flyingron said:
Or he can't tell left from right.
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We're all speculating of course, but I doubt it was expectation bias. I'm almost certain that pilot has landed on 17R far more than he has landed on 17L.

If the Flightaware track information is accurate, it was simply a very bad overshoot by a pilot flying the pattern too fast. Like you, I doubt wind was a factor.
 
Centerline distance of runways at Centennial is a scant 700 feet, compared to 2100 feet for the parallels at KLUK, my old home field, 6300' between the two long runways at CVG, with 4K between the "GA runway" and the closest main (yeah, three parallels.)
I've come in alongside jet traffic at LUK, and it looks close enough at 2100 feet. One third of that, I'd consider closing one runway when there is no control tower.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
Centerline distance of runways at Centennial is a scant 700 feet, compared to 2100 feet for the parallels at KLUK, my old home field, 6300' between the two long runways at CVG, with 4K between the "GA runway" and the closest main (yeah, three parallels.)
I've come in alongside jet traffic at LUK, and it looks close enough at 2100 feet. One third of that, I'd consider closing one runway when there is no control tower.
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Yeah but the pilots based there are very used to it. Plus, with one runway substantially shorter than the other, a "normal" flight profile also provides vertical separation. Really, I never even though of it being close when I was almost side by side with another airplane on the parallel there.
 
midlifeflyer said:
We're all speculating of course, but I doubt it was expectation bias. I'm almost certain that pilot has landed on 17R far more than he has landed on 17L.

If the Flightaware track information is accurate, it was simply a very bad overshoot by a pilot flying the pattern too fast. Like you, I doubt wind was a factor.
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If you look at the flight track, I don't recall the exact numbers, but the Cirrus was doing like 158kts on downwind, he turned base and his airspeed jumped to 175 or more, I'm trying to figure out how that happened. I'm wondering if there was a crosswind up there, causing him to track faster over the ground after the turn and he didn't notice it because he was looking for traffic. Regardless, he was going too fast, but this may have been SOP for him and he just got bit by the wind. If it's not the wind, then the only other explanation is that he went from a pretty high power setting for the pattern to an even higher one on base. There are some things not making sense here.
 
PaulS said:
If you look at the flight track, I don't recall the exact numbers, but the Cirrus was doing like 158kts on downwind, he turned base and his airspeed jumped to 175 or more, I'm trying to figure out how that happened. I'm wondering if there was a crosswind up there, causing him to track faster over the ground after the turn and he didn't notice it because he was looking for traffic. Regardless, he was going too fast, but this may have been SOP for him and he just got bit by the wind. If it's not the wind, then the only other explanation is that he went from a pretty high power setting for the pattern to an even higher one on base. There are some things not making sense here.
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perhaps his wife liked a key lime pilot…
 
Zeldman said:
Now I am wondering did he secure the right engine and land single engine.??
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No feathered props and on a TPE if the auto feather function is working right you really don’t need to immediately. He was on final so not much of a reason to.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
Centerline distance of runways at Centennial is a scant 700 feet, compared to 2100 feet for the parallels at KLUK, my old home field, 6300' between the two long runways at CVG, with 4K between the "GA runway" and the closest main (yeah, three parallels.)
I've come in alongside jet traffic at LUK, and it looks close enough at 2100 feet. One third of that, I'd consider closing one runway when there is no control tower.
Click to expand...
Centennial is towered 24/7 except during the height of COVID, when it went to reduced NIGHT hours.
I learned there, never worried about two runways being close.
 
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