2 Student Pilots Die in Manitoba Midair 08 July 2025

Rumour is one plane was taking off when the other was on final. Final one did a go around but the one taking off climbs into it.
 
CFIs are horrible at teaching situational awareness. yes radio calls help but a mental picture of what's going on is way more important... one day you'll be at an airport and a Cub or some other antique will be out doing laps..

If the FAA can demand ADS-B for safety then they can demand a radio in every aircraft. It's not the 1930s.
 
pfarber said:
If the FAA can demand ADS-B for safety then they can demand a radio in every aircraft. It's not the 1930s.
Click to expand...

but the FAA can't demand the laws of physics be changed.
 
pfarber said:
If the FAA can demand ADS-B for safety then they can demand a radio in every aircraft. It's not the 1930s.
Click to expand...
I'm sorry, I don't understand- in this incident, both aircraft had radios. Those planes that are exempted from having radios (no electrical systems) are also exempt from ADSB as well, aren't they? I also think they are restricted from certain airspace as well except with permission from whoever controls that airspace.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
We were taught (decades ago) to sidestep if there's even a chance that a plane will enter the runway. But you gotta see it for that to be an option.
Click to expand...
Even if they did sidestep, the departing aircraft may have turned into them. Your point is taken.
 
pfarber said:
CFIs are horrible at teaching situational awareness. yes radio calls help but a mental picture of what's going on is way more important... one day you'll be at an airport and a Cub or some other antique will be out doing laps..

If the FAA can demand ADS-B for safety then they can demand a radio in every aircraft. It's not the 1930s.
Click to expand...
The FAA also can't demand what happens in Canada. They're not a state yet
 
pfarber said:
CFIs are horrible at teaching situational awareness. yes radio calls help but a mental picture of what's going on is way more important... one day you'll be at an airport and a Cub or some other antique will be out doing laps..

If the FAA can demand ADS-B for safety then they can demand a radio in every aircraft. It's not the 1930s.
Click to expand...

FAA should mandate looking out the window to See and Avoid, not inside at a consumer grade screen.
 
texasclouds said:
FAA should mandate looking out the window to See and Avoid, not inside at a consumer grade screen.
Click to expand...
Looking is not enough, they should also make seeing and noticing 100% mandatory with transgressions punishable by death !

Actually, it already is punishable by death and people are still not complying … perhaps this should be our clue that the problem with See and Avoid is more fundamental then just people being non compliant .
 
texasclouds said:
FAA should mandate looking out the window to See and Avoid, not inside at a consumer grade screen.
Click to expand...

Don't they do that?

I sure as hell hope CFI's are not teaching student pilots to monkey with ADS-B in the pattern.

Basic principle of collision avoidance I learned from formation flying: never lose sight of conflicting traffic. If you are on final and an aircraft takes off in your path, you must maneuver as necessary to maintain visual contact until the situation is conclusively deconflicted. Sidestep, turn, whatever it takes.

Unfortunately it takes time to teach such lessons. Those young students just didn't have enough experience yet.

Another teaching point is the benefit of tight patterns. With a nice tight base, you can keep an eye on the departure end of the runway and any aircraft on adjacent taxiways. B52 approaches with 3 mile finals, not so much.
 
Warmi said:
Looking is not enough, they should also make seeing and noticing 100% mandatory with transgressions punishable by death !

Actually, it already is punishable by death and people are still not complying … perhaps this should be our clue that the problem with See and Avoid is more fundamental then just people being non compliant .
Click to expand...

Sky cops, armed with bean bag shotguns
 
Cap'n Jack said:
Even if they did sidestep, the departing aircraft may have turned into them. Your point is taken.
Click to expand...
The side step is not an avoidance maneuver by itself, its to allow you to see the departing aircraft so you can maneuver to avoid them.

ADS-B is a tool, radios are a tool, your eyes are a tool, but if you aren't using the tools properly and actively trying to avoid hitting each other, then it doesn't matter what tools you have.

Like riding a motorcycle, you have to assume everyone is out to kill you.
 
pfarber said:
CFIs are horrible at teaching situational awareness...
Click to expand...
DO you have anything positive to say about CFIs? What makes you an authority on flight instruction? Do you know what the Seven Learning Factors are? How about the Dirty Dozen Human Factors?
 
pfarber said:
CFIs are horrible at teaching situational awareness. yes radio calls help but a mental picture of what's going on is way more important... one day you'll be at an airport and a Cub or some other antique will be out doing laps..
Click to expand...
Us old timers with years of experience have to remember what it was like as students. A lot of stuff being shoved into one's brain, a lot of stuff one is mentally trying to organize. Little tasks such as looking out the window and keeping a mental image of the traffic pattern get slid down the task queue in favor of ensuring the plane is configured properly, the airspeed is right on, the proper radio calls are made, and the touchdown point well-viewed.

A major part of learning to fly consists of learning to multitask a variety of areas. Obviously, a student is, by definition, someone learning to do this. They don't come perfect out of the crate.

Out of curiosity, I looked at the midairs in my 1998-2021 list of Cessna 172 accidents. The median pilot total time for all accidents is 250 hours...but for midairs, the median total time was 652 hours.

Out of 101 accidents that included such data (not all did), there were more ATPs involved than students (14 vs. 12). Roughly the same number of Privates and Commercial tickets (38 vs 37). We don't know how many pilots with each rating are operational, of course.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Cap'n Jack said:
I'm sorry, I don't understand- in this incident, both aircraft had radios. Those planes that are exempted from having radios (no electrical systems) are also exempt from ADSB as well, aren't they? I also think they are restricted from certain airspace as well except with permission from whoever controls that airspace.
Click to expand...
I once flew a NORDO Fly Baby into Boeing Field, one of the busiest non-airline airports in the country. Called first, to arrange light signals. The controller had trouble believing I didn't have a transponder.....

Ron Wanttaja
 
wanttaja said:
I once flew a NORDO Fly Baby into Boeing Field, one of the busiest non-airline airports in the country. Called first, to arrange light signals. The controller had trouble believing I didn't have a transponder.....

Ron Wanttaja
Click to expand...
Thats bordering on cruelty ..
 
pfarber said:
CFIs are horrible at teaching situational awareness. yes radio calls help but a mental picture of what's going on is way more important... one day you'll be at an airport and a Cub or some other antique will be out doing laps..

If the FAA can demand ADS-B for safety then they can demand a radio in every aircraft. It's not the 1930s.
Click to expand...
We've had midairs where both pilots were talking to ATC. Even in the traffic pattern at tower-controlled fields. Your radio is not going to save you.
 
pfarber said:
If the FAA can demand ADS-B for safety then they can demand a radio in every aircraft. It's not the 1930s.
Click to expand...
They don’t demand it for most airspace. It’s only rewuired where fast movers are more likely to be. Below 10 grand and outside B and C space, you don’t need ADS-B, nor any transponder.
 
Lindberg said:
We've had midairs where both pilots were talking to ATC. Even in the traffic pattern at tower-controlled fields. Your radio is not going to save you.
Click to expand...

Great, then they should stop bothering with mandating ATC at controlled airports - since there are clearly cases where it wont save you, why bother requiring it …
 
I have to confess that seeing the traffic is difficult for me. ATC advises, it’s on the screen, but I can’t find him out the window. I know, scan in small segments of the sky….other tips?
 
Ed Haywood said:
I suspect your typical NORDO aircraft is less likely to have a mid-air than many other aircraft.
Click to expand...

True for many reasons that include that without a radio & an ADS-B screen to stare at the bored NORDO pilot has not much else to do but look out the window... :biggrin:
 
Cap'n Jack said:
I'm sorry, I don't understand- in this incident, both aircraft had radios. Those planes that are exempted from having radios (no electrical systems) are also exempt from ADSB as well, aren't they? I also think they are restricted from certain airspace as well except with permission from whoever controls that airspace.
Click to expand...
i posted a two part reply. first was even WITH RADIOS cfis don't teach situational awareness. the go around AC heard calls of a departing AC yet didn't have the awareness to understand that he was in the path of another student most likely remaining in the pattern.

second paragraph (a distinct section of a piece of writing, usually dealing with a single theme and indicated by a new line, indentation, or numbering.) was referring to the fact than many AC don't carry radios because lack of electrical systems... but is not an excuse to not have a $200 portable for safety.

Can i have made it any clearer? i can include some word art if that would help.
 
pfarber said:
CFIs are horrible at teaching situational awareness. yes radio calls help but a mental picture of what's going on is way more important... one day you'll be at an airport and a Cub or some other antique will be out doing laps..

If the FAA can demand ADS-B for safety then they can demand a radio in every aircraft. It's not the 1930s.
Click to expand...
Which CFI's do you think are worse? Yes, *some* CFI's are bad at teaching this, but I guarantee you it's the ones that are rookies, with no experience of even flying a NORDO plane, or perhaps having even flown an aircraft unequipped with ADS-B who are the worst offenders.

I nearly had a head-on last week with such a CFI and student flying a twin on an opposite traffic single-engine instrument approach for 35 into GVT while 6 of us were in the pattern for 17. I was upwind in a Cessna 120 with a tailwheel student, with an aircraft on a touch-and-go behind me, an aircraft on final, one on base, and three on downwind. We were about to turn crosswind when it was pretty clear that the twin was barreling in and my student was about to instinctively turn left into the crosswind. As the twin got to be about two fingers wide dead head-on to us I took the controls and made a hard right and advised the multi to please do the same and it worked out, but we were seconds from a mid-air. With all the radio chatter, it was plenty difficult sorting out who was doing what and I'm sure some folks were counting on ADS-B to help them, but eyes outside and situational awareness was what made the difference.

I was taught by old timers in J-3 Cubs and Taylorcrafts and I know for a fact they did a much better job of keeping track of what was around them than the ADS-B crowd does today. Demanding a radio doesn't fix things, and you don't see unequipped 1930s aircraft as a significant portion of these accidents, either. Most of them are equipped trainers.
 
pfarber said:
i posted a two part reply. first was even WITH RADIOS cfis don't teach situational awareness. the go around AC heard calls of a departing AC yet didn't have the awareness to understand that he was in the path of another student most likely remaining in the pattern.

second paragraph (a distinct section of a piece of writing, usually dealing with a single theme and indicated by a new line, indentation, or numbering.) was referring to the fact than many AC don't carry radios because lack of electrical systems... but is not an excuse to not have a $200 portable for safety.

Can i have made it any clearer? i can include some word art if that would help.
Click to expand...
I don't think anyone had any trouble understanding your post. I think people were trying to correlate it with the OP's post, and didn't get that it was a non-sequitur and let it go. Which is fine, everybody does that from time to time, sometimes just for humor.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
Even if they did sidestep, the departing aircraft may have turned into them. Your point is taken.
Click to expand...
We were also taught to fly runway heading until at least 500' AGL, unless instructed by ATC (which would happen at our field).
 
Daleandee said:
True for many reasons that include that without a radio & an ADS-B screen to stare at the bored NORDO pilot has not much else to do but look out the window... :biggrin:
Click to expand...
Or fidget with his Snoopy goggles.

Seriously though, every intentional NORDO aircraft I've seen has been big, yellow, and SLOWWWW. Easy to avoid for anyone paying attention. As long as NORDO pilots follow standard pattern procedures, they don't bother me at all.

But let's be honest, we've all been unintentionally NORDO. Wrong freq, volume down, etc. That's why we fly standard patterns and constantly scan for traffic, radios or not.
 
pfarber said:
i posted a two part reply. first was even WITH RADIOS cfis don't teach situational awareness. the go around AC heard calls of a departing AC yet didn't have the awareness to understand that he was in the path of another student most likely remaining in the pattern.

second paragraph (a distinct section of a piece of writing, usually dealing with a single theme and indicated by a new line, indentation, or numbering.) was referring to the fact than many AC don't carry radios because lack of electrical systems... but is not an excuse to not have a $200 portable for safety.

Can i have made it any clearer? i can include some word art if that would help.
Click to expand...
Yes, you could have made it clearer. If the second paragraph want intended to relate to this accident, you could have posted it in a different thread.
 
pfarber said:
CFIs are horrible at teaching situational awareness. yes radio calls help but a mental picture of what's going on is way more important... one day you'll be at an airport and a Cub or some other antique will be out doing laps..
Click to expand...
It is my observation based on reviewing learner’s knowledge tests; when a pilot says CFIs are horrible at teaching a particular skill they were likely terrible at learning that particular skill.

I have flown with forty three CFIs and I have yet to fly with one who feels teaching situational awareness is important.

I have yet to fly with a learner who felt learning situational awareness was not important.

It is my observation that despite good training and flying experience any pilot may make a mistake.

It is sad that these two young people will not become experienced pilots and I suspect their flight instructors will spend sleepless nights wondering how they could have done a better job of teaching situational awareness.
 
pfarber said:
i posted a two part reply. first was even WITH RADIOS cfis don't teach situational awareness.
Click to expand...
And how many CFIs have you flown with? How many hours do you have? What licenses do you have?

We taught situational awareness all the time, even in the empty-sky rural area we used for flight training. We knew that the students would need those skills when we went to busy Class C airports. Every upper-air maneuver we did was preceded by a clearing turn, looking in every direction and up and down. Teaching that takes time. If the student doesn't take it seriously, sometimes it takes pointing out a nearby airplane that you knew about and saw but he didn't.

Radios are no substitute for eyeballs outside. What does the "V" in VFR stand for, anyhow?
Vance Breese said:
It is my observation based on reviewing learner’s knowledge tests; when a pilot says CFIs are horrible at teaching a particular skill they were likely terrible at learning that particular skill.
Click to expand...
Yes. Sometimes it takes a big stick to make an impression. The Learning Factor of Intensity applies here:

INTENSITY - Use dramatic, realistic or unexpected things, as they are long remembered.

(a) Students learn more from dramatic or exciting experiences than from boring ones. It is a well-known fact that a student's "lookout" while flying will improve considerably after a first experience with a near miss. There is no suggestion here that you provide your student with a near miss, but you should attempt to make your students' learning experiences exciting by being excited yourself and perhaps using any opportunity you can to introduce unexpected things to your students.

From https://tc.canada.ca/en/aviation/pu...e-tp-975#part-i-learning-and-learning-factors
 
SLB said:
I have to confess that seeing the traffic is difficult for me. ATC advises, it’s on the screen, but I can’t find him out the window. I know, scan in small segments of the sky….other tips?
Click to expand...
Get your cataracts fixed? (Not joking; I did, life changing!)
 
SLB said:
I have to confess that seeing the traffic is difficult for me. ATC advises, it’s on the screen, but I can’t find him out the window. I know, scan in small segments of the sky….other tips?
Click to expand...

Let 'em get closer.

You're not alone. I've been watching traffic on my fish box and am convinced that about 2 miles is typical maximum visual range for most smaller GA aircraft. You might get lucky if an aircraft presents its wings or silhouettes against clouds. But if ATC calls out traffic 3-5 miles low against ground clutter, IMO low odds you will spot it. Head to head level traffic is the hardest to spot. Yikes.

I have an AV-30 set up as a traffic display and I find that very useful for enroute monitoring. When ATC or my EFB warns of traffic at 3-5 miles, I'll zoom in the scope to track as it gets closer. That definitely helps to spot.

But in the pattern, my eyeballs are out the window and head on a swivel.

I suspect in this accident the upper aircraft saw the traffic and lost sight of it on go around. If the student had not encountered that situation yet with a CFI, they might not have had a chance to learn what to do. Brutally sad to lose young folks like that. My heart aches for their families. I have felt that pain.
 
SLB said:
I have to confess that seeing the traffic is difficult for me. ATC advises, it’s on the screen, but I can’t find him out the window. I know, scan in small segments of the sky….other tips?
Click to expand...
When looking into an “empty” sky, your eyes tend to focus close. Find something further away to focus on periodically to readjust your eyes.

Beyond that, practice. Actively look for traffic all the time.
 
pfarber said:
i posted a two part reply. first was even WITH RADIOS cfis don't teach situational awareness. the go around AC heard calls of a departing AC yet didn't have the awareness to understand that he was in the path of another student most likely remaining in the pattern.
Click to expand...
Some CFI's don't teach situational awareness (SA). My experience was the vast majority of them do, as my training involved several CFIs. My training was prolonged due to job changes and subsequent relocations. When I'm checked out for rental aircraft at new places, the CFI asks for me to describe where other aircraft are (or has me point to them) based on radio calls. I suspect your CFI was an exception to teaching proper SA. The sentence about the departing aircraft is merely conjecture on your part.
pfarber said:
second paragraph (a distinct section of a piece of writing, usually dealing with a single theme and indicated by a new line, indentation, or numbering.) was referring to the fact than many AC don't carry radios because lack of electrical systems... but is not an excuse to not have a $200 portable for safety.
Click to expand...
And aircraft without radios have nothing to do with the thread topic. Your comment started about ADSB.
pfarber said:
Can i have made it any clearer? i can include some word art if that would help.
Click to expand...
Yes, you could have. ADS-B isn't required on all aircraft, as implied by your comment (partially quoted below) just as radios aren't. NORDO happens. I once had a radio failure - I entered into the pattern and stayed as predictable as I could, while making radio calls in case it was a receiver failure (it was). In any case, it's a non-sequitur to the thread topic as both aircraft in the incident had radios.
pfarber said:
If the FAA can demand ADS-B for safety...
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top