MidAir at Centennial Airport Cirrus and Metroliner

sourdough44 said:
but don’t we think ‘student pilot’ can explain a good amount of this?
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No. Student pilots have no trouble with the parallel runways at KAPA. This is an airport with over 300,000 ops annually, a large percentage of them being flight training at one of the about half dozen flight schools based there. Takeoff and landing practice on 17R/35L while other ops are taking place on the parallel is an almost constant occurrence. A student pilot there just sees it as normal.

I'm becoming very interested in the number of folks who see this great problem with the parallels. It's really not the big deal some seem to be imagining from this highly unusual one-off accident,
 
midlifeflyer said:
No. Student pilots have no trouble with the parallel runways at KAPA. This is an airport with over 300,000 ops annually, a large percentage of them being flight training at one of the about half dozen flight schools based there. Takeoff and landing practice on 17R/35L while other ops are taking place on the parallel is an almost constant occurrence. A student pilot there just sees it as normal.

I'm becoming very interested in the number of folks who see this great problem with the parallels. It's really not the big deal some seem to be imagining from this highly unusual one-off accident,
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It's because someone made quite a large mistake. The most unusual thing about it was the 100% survival. Still, a 700' overshoot would call for a go-around, unless the Piper driver was aiming for the wrong runway.
 
midlifeflyer said:
No. Student pilots have no trouble with the parallel runways at KAPA. This is an airport with over 300,000 ops annually, a large percentage of them being flight training at one of the about half dozen flight schools based there. Takeoff and landing practice on 17R/35L while other ops are taking place on the parallel is an almost constant occurrence. A student pilot there just sees it as normal.

I'm becoming very interested in the number of folks who see this great problem with the parallels. It's really not the big deal some seem to be imagining from this highly unusual one-off accident,
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Not a one-off but yeah, rare. I’ve heard of no other ones. https://www.vpnavy.com/vp47mem_20nov2000.html
 
In my days of watching approach radar scopes and working in control towers (over 30 years ago in the Air Force) the radar sweep would take approximately 4 1/3 seconds per sweep. Maybe their equipment is faster I don't know. Now thinking as a tower controller by the time you realized the Cirrus had blown through final for his runway on the repeater in the tower or visual observation he would already have nailed the Metro. I've also got over 3,000 hours in the Metro (SA227, almost same cockpit setup as this SA226) that pilot would probably not seen the Cirrus as he would be watching traffic he is to follow and his final checks. The first thing I would have checked when the collision occurred and with the plane yawing is the engine instruments, find they were good, then land.
 
luvflyin said:
Nah. It's never to soon. But whadda ya talkin about. Did they used to make em in Switzerland and then moved manufacturing to San Antonio and they built them better here????
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The Metroliners were made in San Antonio. I doubt Pilatus will move their line out of Switzerland anytime soon, if at all.
 
Crow said:
In my days of watching approach radar scopes and working in control towers (over 30 years ago in the Air Force) the radar sweep would take approximately 4 1/3 seconds per sweep. Maybe their equipment is faster I don't know. Now thinking as a tower controller by the time you realized the Cirrus had blown through final for his runway on the repeater in the tower or visual observation he would already have nailed the Metro. I've also got over 3,000 hours in the Metro (SA227, almost same cockpit setup as this SA226) that pilot would probably not seen the Cirrus as he would be watching traffic he is to follow and his final checks. The first thing I would have checked when the collision occurred and with the plane yawing is the engine instruments, find they were good, then land.
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Kinda looks like that’s what he did. Do you think it’s possible he did not know he had been hit until much later, like after landing?
@Radar Contact @Jmcmanna are you guys using ADSB input yet? If so, do you know if it’s being fed to the Towers? @Timbeck2 , is Tucson using it? Are you getting it? I doubt faster update would have made any difference. Just wondering
 
[QUOTE="denverpilot, post: 3086750, member: 6717"
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I've heard them referred to as a "San Antonio sewer pipe", so in this case maybe it's more like a "flush" wound.
 
The difference between 1 sec and 4.5 sec refresh rate wouldn’t have made a difference if indeed APA is using single source radar feed. The Cirrus was on a perfect collision course with what, maybe an 800 ft runway spacing. If the tower didn’t have the radar display offset and zoomed in, 800ft could be an 1/8 of an inch. Good luck trying to determine that on a display probably 5 ft from the observer and possibly no extended (parallel) centerlines to assist in alignment.
 
luvflyin said:
Kinda looks like that’s what he did. Do you think it’s possible he did not know he had been hit until much later, like after landing?
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I lean towards the theory he did not know he was involved in a midair. I think he only knew that the ass of his plane went left for a second but he was able to straighten it out. The Metro is a noisy airplane with Garrett turboprops he would have been wearing a DC type headset (guessing) and he may have noticed a pressure change in the cabin. I would have loved to see the look on his face after he landed and saw the damage. If it was me I' buy a lottery ticket.
 
flyer770 said:
Yes, that's the first solo student following the Cirrus who saw the collision and chute.
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I believe I already posted his solo video which includes his great funny t-shirt tail his instructor drew, above.

Ya gotta love a solo t-shirt with a parachuting Cirrus on it. LOL
 
denverpilot said:
I believe I already posted his solo video which includes his great funny t-shirt tail his instructor drew, above.

Ya gotta love a solo t-shirt with a parachuting Cirrus on it. LOL
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I really love it, two lives saved that would have been lost in any other single piston production plane, superior flying skills wouldn't have saved them.

Now had they displayed superior decision making flying that pattern, they wouldn't have needed the chute, but that happens to too many pilots, not just Cirrus guys. But that's for another thread.
 
it's always good when safety equipment works - you don't want to have to use the safety equipment, but nobody died is the best outcome.

(yeah, I know, kind of corny)
 
Here is some interesting stats on mid-airs someone on another forum researched.

From 2008 until 2021 there have been 144 mid-airs. For those of you who think mid airs are a non issue, this is pretty sobering considering our national air system and it's rules are specifically designed to minimize or eliminate mid-airs.

Here is the breakdown by manufacturer over this period.


  • 9 Beech
  • 52 Cessna
  • 2 Diamond (1 a glider)
  • 5 Cirrus
  • 42 Piper
 
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PaulS said:
Here is some interesting stats on mid-airs someone on another forum researched.

From 2008 until 2021 there have been 144 mid-airs. For those of you who think mid airs are a non issue, this is pretty sobering considering our national air system and it's rules are specifically designed to minimize or eliminate mid-airs.

Here is the breakdown by manufacturer over this period.


  • 9 Beech
  • 52 Cessna
  • 2 Diamond (1 a glider)
  • 5 Cirrus
  • 42 Piper
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It’s incredible that only 5 Cirri could do so much damage :eek:

In all seriousness- these stats are eye-opening!
 
PaulS said:
From 2008 until 2021 there have been 144 mid-airs.
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That's roughly 11 per year, or almost 1 a month...that seems remarkably high. Is it 144 midairs or 144 airplanes damaged/lost in 72 midairs? How many involve formation or racing?

Nauga,
who has come close, but not in that timeframe
 
Velocity173 said:
That’s why I fly helicopters. No midairs on that list.
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FYI: the list probably didn't count helicopters. I can think of a several in that time-frame plus more overseas to include helicopter mid-airs with a cranes/towers as well.
 
PaulS said:
Here is some interesting stats on mid-airs someone on another forum researched.

From 2008 until 2021 there have been 144 mid-airs. For those of you who think mid airs are a non issue, this is pretty sobering considering our national air system and it's rules are specifically designed to minimize or eliminate mid-airs.

Here is the breakdown by manufacturer over this period.


  • 9 Beech
  • 52 Cessna
  • 2 Diamond (1 a glider)
  • 5 Cirrus
  • 42 Piper
Click to expand...

Did he give his sources? Any breakdown of conditions? Like on final to parallel runways? The manufacturer number seems useless info to me. Like Piper and Cessna have made a lot more planes than the others. Model might mean something, like some may have visibility issues or something that contributes. Etc
 
nauga said:
That's roughly 11 per year, or almost 1 a month...that seems remarkably high. Is it 144 midairs or 144 airplanes damaged/lost in 72 midairs? How many involve formation or racing?

Nauga,
who has come close, but not in that timeframe
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144 mid air collisions over that time period according to the poster there. Data from the NTSB data base.

I've been close once or twice too. Each time the other aircraft didn't react which I assume is because they didn't see me. I wonder if I've been involved in close calls where I didn't see another who saw me. Chilling.
 
luvflyin said:
Did he give his sources? Any breakdown of conditions? Like on final to parallel runways? The manufacturer number seems useless info to me. Like Piper and Cessna have made a lot more planes than the others. Model might mean something, like some may have visibility issues or something that contributes. Etc
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The data is from the NTSB data base, I think he used the mid air classification to sort them out. He said it wasn't trivial to extract the manufacturer data. I would assume you would have to read each report to identify the circumstances.

Again, this is from a post on another forum.
 
PaulS said:
The data is from the NTSB data base, I think he used the mid air classification to sort them out. He said it wasn't trivial to extract the manufacturer data. I would assume you would have to read each report to identify the circumstances.

Again, this is from a post on another forum.
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Which forum?
 
denverpilot said:
Supposedly happened around 10:20 MT.

The Metroliner photo floating around had a caption that the person who took it heard the KL declare with right engine out and then saw the Cirrus descending under the chute.
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Wonder what happened first, Right engine out or mid air with the cirrus. Hell of a great flying job by the Metro pilot!
 
Polarisguy said:
Wonder what happened first, Right engine out or mid air with the cirrus. Hell of a great flying job by the Metro pilot!
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The right engine never went out. When the Cirrus hit him and made him yaw right, the pilot assumed he had lost his right engine to yaw right.
 
nauga said:
That's roughly 11 per year, or almost 1 a month...that seems remarkably high.
Click to expand...
Off by a factor of 2
Is it 144 midairs or 144 airplanes damaged/lost in 72 midairs? How many involve formation or racing?
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72 mid air collisions.

Working from memory -
About 3 to 6 fatal mid air collisions per year.
Most happen on final.
Some would be formation flying gone wrong (sky diving accident a few years ago for example.)
Does not count landing on top of someone that is rolling down the runway.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
Off by a factor of 2

72 mid air collisions.

Working from memory -
About 3 to 6 fatal mid air collisions per year.
Most happen on final.
Some would be formation flying gone wrong (sky diving accident a few years ago for example.)
Does not count landing on top of someone that is rolling down the runway.
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Do you recall if parallel runways factored in to any of them?
 
luvflyin said:
Do you recall if parallel runways factored in to any of them?
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Not off the top of my head. You can dig through the old Nall reports...
One problem is that these are so rare that it's really hard to draw any valid conclusions because you are looking at differences between small numbers.
 
nauga said:
That's roughly 11 per year, or almost 1 a month...that seems remarkably high. Is it 144 midairs or 144 airplanes damaged/lost in 72 midairs? How many involve formation or racing?
Click to expand...
My homebuilt aircraft accident database (1998-2019) shows 51* homebuilts involved in midairs out of 4404 accidents. 19 of the aircraft were involved in formation flying, and 15 fatalities resulted from the formation accidents. 12 of the formation accidents were Vans aircraft.

My 1998-2015 Cessna 172 database shows 106 midairs out of 2574 accidents. Cessna 210s through the same period saw 6 midairs out of 573 total. 550 Cherokee PA-28 -140, -161, -180, and -181 accidents 1998-2010, 11 were midairs.

In both the homebuilts and the Cessna 172 cases, about half of the accidents produced fatalities. FWIW, I scanned through the Probable Causes for the 51 homebuilt midairs and didn't see a mention of parallel runways. However, "'The failure by the other pilot to maintain visual lookout for other aircraft during landing" covers a lot of sins.

Ron Wanttaja

* It's an odd number because the collisions may involve Standard-category aircraft, which aren't counted in my database.
 
More than I realized. Dang.

Nauga,
praticing avoidance
 
PaulS said:
Here is some interesting stats on mid-airs someone on another forum researched.

From 2008 until 2021 there have been 144 mid-airs. For those of you who think mid airs are a non issue, this is pretty sobering considering our national air system and it's rules are specifically designed to minimize or eliminate mid-airs.

Here is the breakdown by manufacturer over this period.


  • 9 Beech
  • 52 Cessna
  • 2 Diamond (1 a glider)
  • 5 Cirrus
  • 42 Piper
Click to expand...

Velocity173 said:
That’s why I fly helicopters. No midairs on that list. ;)
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At least one involved a heli: the October 2014 midair at FDK between an R44 and... a Cirrus.

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media...ports-probable-causes-of-2014-maryland-midair
 
PaulS said:
Here is some interesting stats on mid-airs someone on another forum researched.

From 2008 until 2021 there have been 144 mid-airs. For those of you who think mid airs are a non issue, this is pretty sobering considering our national air system and it's rules are specifically designed to minimize or eliminate mid-airs.

Here is the breakdown by manufacturer over this period.


  • 9 Beech
  • 52 Cessna
  • 2 Diamond (1 a glider)
  • 5 Cirrus
  • 42 Piper
Click to expand...
How were only 110 aircraft involved in 144 mid air collisions?
 
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