This is an excerpt from a report made to the Aviation Safety Reporting System. The narrative is written by the pilot, rather than FAA or NTSB officials. To maintain anonymity, many details, such as aircraft model or airport, are often scrubbed from the reports.
Was already established in the pattern in the crosswind for right traffic.
Immediately received a traffic ahead notification from the Garmin 430, immediately turned into the downwind with steep turn.
The traffic was straight ahead about 400 feet above our aircraft. Did not hear anything on UNICOM, did not know if aircraft intended on entering the pattern or if they were flying too close to the airport.
Established my downwind call for right traffic. Immediately heard on UNICOM, Aircraft Y entering the 45 right downwind 6. Was losing altitude and coming right for our aircraft. My student kept saying they are getting closer.
I saw on the ADS-B they were our same altitude at 1,000 feet for traffic pattern.
Aircraft Y continued to fly right towards us. I immediately dove down to get away, unfortunately Aircraft Y was also descending.
I leveled off at 500 and made an immediate left turn about 90°, started to climb once I was clear of the other aircraft.
Heard on the comms left base for 6 by Aircraft Y, but it is right traffic pattern. They did a go-around and departed the pattern.
I look back and wish I had said something on the comms to make sure we stayed clear of each other, but in the moment I was concerned about getting down and the safety of my student.
Primary Problem: Human Factors
ACN: 1856407
Almost 50 years ago at OAK GROVE AIRPORT just south of Ft. Worth my instructor was soloing a student. On short final a BEECH Baron flew under the student and landed.
Stupid pilot’s in not a new happening.
As I understood/learned it, the standard Unicom practices is AIRCRAFT TYPE, TAIL NUMBER [or abbreviated TN] and LOCATION/ACTION/STATUS [where am I and what am I doing]… such as…
Piper 00Victor xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx[status]
Twin Cessna 11Romeo xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx[status]
However, it seems that many new pilots are opting to omit TYPE and/or TAIL NUMBER and only providing brief/incomplete STATUS… and then ‘damn the torpedo’s, full speed ahead’.
There are [2] obvious problems with not including TYPE/TAIL NUMBER… other than exposing the unprofessional/arrogance nature of the reporting [or not] pilot…
A. What TYPE [shape/silhouette/lighting-pattern] aircraft am ‘I’…
and…
B. What is the legal identity # of an aircraft, so we can speak directly/explicitly without ambiguity to each other “OOV this is 11R…”.
Sadly, I’m beginning to suspect that some pilots believe ‘what You don’t say can’t be held against you’… so the least said the better…
N number, type and color. There might be 2 conflicting please out there.
Even with eyes outside, one can miss another aircraft. I’ve had it happen a few times. Only if there are two of us in cockpit with one eyes outside do I not look — typically I’m under the hood in that case. If we get an alert for traffic, hood off and eyes out side.
I try very hard to avoid bending metal or exchanging paint jobs in the air or on the ground. But sometimes stupid just happens. I have a hat pin. Anytime I think I am perfect, I get it out and jab it into my arm. So far I’ve failed that test. I bleed and it hurts. Haven’t got to perfect yet. You?
Eyes 👀 outside 👀👀👀👀👀👀
Did you try looking outside?
Looking outside is not a solution to these problems which are all too common. The only remedy is suspending some tickets. I’ve reported unsafe pilots before. Don’t know why others are so squeamish about doing so.
Precisely. Ray Lewis!
Assuming you’re always right and enforcement action on unilateral undocumented opinions?
Perhaps pattern traffic moves too fast and from different directions than can be analyzed staring at a instrument panel displays.
I have to agree with Ray here, although I might have said it differently. There are some cowboy aviators out there and we all know it. Keeping eyes outside in the pattern is excellent practice, but I’m still looking at the instruments, including the ADSB. Here the reporter had an extra set of eyes. As for enforcement, any report you make to a regulatory agency is “unilateral”. At the non towered field I fly into most often, the CTAF is recorded. If the pattern is right and our cowboy’s radio calls clearly indicate left traffic, I’d say that’s all the “documentation” needed. As Ray suggests, avoiding the collision does nothing to address the behavior.
Note to self: Report a Ray Lewis to the FAA. Check!