2 Student Pilots Die in Manitoba Midair 08 July 2025

Ed Haywood said:
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.
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I was amazed how hard it is to see other planes. Yes, beyond 3 miles extremely difficult even if the CFI tells you were they are.
 
Ed Haywood said:
It is amazing that so many of us learned situational awareness, since none of our cfis apparently taught it.

TIC
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Not so TIC… did your instructors actually spend LOTS of time devoted to that?

I do. I teach to ALWAYS have three questions to the forefront…

1. Where am I?
2. Where am I going?
3. What am I going to do when I get there?

Honestly, about any given moment I freeze a sim, 150 hr civilian ppl, instrument and multi rated Air Force student in a T-6 (1100 hp turboprop) and say “point to EXACTLY where you are on that iPad”, most can’t. That’s question one. If you can’t answer all three INSTANTLY you aren’t situationally aware.

It’s HARD to teach that subject!!

If the going around plane asked themselves “what am I going to do when I get there” (there being the conclusion of a go around), they may have considered NEVER losing sight.

Go around and losing sight of the plane for which you went around, is pretty basic bad. You’re not thinking ahead at all.
 
i think that the proliferation of electronics and TAA aircraft used as trainers now has made the situation worse. the younger instructors are dependent on the electronic boxes. they seem to put emphasis on learning which buttons to push way before the need really exists. basic airmanship skills is alwas the firsts things to learn. how to program the box should be way down the list. i really thing that we need to go back to basic trainers with one comm radio, a stop watch and a paper chart for the first few hours of training. its really bothers me that one flight school on the field makes getting a foreflight subscription one of the first priorities for a new student. as it has been stated here, adsb, radios, moving maps ect are a tool. stop teaching them to be crutches.
 
Tools said:
Not so TIC… did your instructors actually spend LOTS of time devoted to that?

I do. I teach to ALWAYS have three questions to the forefront…

1. Where am I?
2. Where am I going?
3. What am I going to do when I get there?

Honestly, about any given moment I freeze a sim, 150 hr civilian ppl, instrument and multi rated Air Force student in a T-6 (1100 hp turboprop) and say “point to EXACTLY where you are on that iPad”, most can’t. That’s question one. If you can’t answer all three INSTANTLY you aren’t situationally aware.

It’s HARD to teach that subject!!

If the going around plane asked themselves “what am I going to do when I get there” (there being the conclusion of a go around), they may have considered NEVER losing sight.

Go around and losing sight of the plane for which you went around, is pretty basic bad. You’re not thinking ahead at all.
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Good situational awareness is almost one of those things - you either have it or you don’t. If a student comes in with “I don’t know where north is” or worse “I don’t know what north is” while they’re still on the ground, it’s a good indication that SA is going to suffer in the air. Not saying it can’t be taught and improved (it obviously can and should), but really good situational awareness starts well before and goes well beyond flying.

For instance, knowing where a landmark (city, mountain range, airport, etc) is relative to other landmarks and knowing its general shape and orientation. Knowing the compass points as they relate to cardinal directions is super helpful. Knowing reciprocal headings as well. Understanding that, for instance, if you’re flying south and turn 90° left, which direction you’d now be heading. The ability to mentally rotate a north-up map in your head and reorient to it is nice. Also helps to have decent metric estimation - know what a mile looks like on the ground from various altitudes. Even knowing the path of the sun through the sky (as well as where it rises and sets).

But I find that really good situational awareness is inherent in people who have a semblance of the above before they ever get in a cockpit. If not, they have a lot of work in front of them in addition to the firehose of everything else.
 
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