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.
While returning from a training flight in the northwest VFR practice area of ZZZ on our way back into ZZZ1, I had a near miss on what could have been a mid-air collision.
I had just completed an aerobatic profile in the northwest practice area in the Extra 330. During the profile I spotted a number of other training aircraft in the area and made sure to deconflict during the entire flight.
Upon completion of the maneuvers I began our descent while performing S-Turns to scan for traffic. I saw no traffic, so I continued our descent and turned towards ZZZ1.
While flying southbound at approximately 6,000 feet I passed just under another training aircraft that was traveling east-west in the practice area. I did not even see them until they had passed right in front of us.
I failed to properly monitor the CTAF frequency during the flight, which could have potentially prevented the situation.
However, after landing I did go over to the flight school of the aircraft I had the near miss with to apologize. The pilot of the other aircraft was a DPE on a check ride with a student, and they said that they never saw me either visually or on ADS-B and were not even aware of the incident until I had told them about it.
Primary Problem: Human Factors
ACN: 1992165
I was flying in a VFR corridor that connects several small airports under the BAIRES terminal area. I was crossing the Delta airspace of one of these airports, in contact with the control tower that instructed me to cross south of the field. Suddenly out of nowhere a Cessna 182 crossed just in front of me, same height. It was too late to attempt anything. I don’t know how close it was but I remember the pilot with sun glasses, a red cap and green headset. That’s how close. About 2 seconds later I crossed his wake turbulence which was very mild but shows that we were at the same height. 20 seconds later the pilot called in the tower frequency announcing that he was approaching the Delta. Approaching, sure. I reported the extremely close near miss to ATC and the other pilot didn’t know what I was talking about. How neither of us saw the other baffles me. Since we crossed paths at 90 degrees and same height, we must have been in unobstructed plain sight of each other for a long time, him at my 1 to 2 o’clock, and me at his 10 to 11 o’clock. Evidently neither of us did a good job at seeing and avoiding. This wasn’t my scariest situation flying because it was so quick that by the time I understood the situation it was over, no time to get scared. But it was certainly the closest I was from dying in a plane.
I learned to fly in 1993. I remember our club purchased a portable GPS. I knew what the future held and was wary of what would happen when computers took over many pilot duties as well as what impact future glass cockpits would have in aviation in general. In 1995 I purchased a 1960 210 with a LORAN… which allowed me to file/R.
In 1996 I would be commuting for work weekly flying over the Appalachian mountains. I was always in the habit of filling an instrument plan even in IMC for several reasons. For one thing, my home base was within the WAS Class B Airspace. It made it easier for me to get in and out. The most important reason is that I came to feel that if the country were run by ATC, it would run like a Swiss Watch. I felt far safer in the air than I did in the ground when I had to drive 7 hours when there was known icing which I was not equipped for. I came to feel very comfortable and safe knowing that someone had my on his RADAR screen on my 180 NM journey.
Was this feeling of safety an illusion. At that time I think my feelings were justified. Like everyone else I was trained to see and avoid a principle that goes back to the first days of aviation.
But even that comfort zone can cease to exist and my habit of always filing an instrument plan may have eroded my see and avoid habits. I took some people on a trip to Tangier Island which had an uncontrolled field. As I approached the island ATC cancelled IFR and I was on my own.
Of course I communicated with traffic on CTAF and I thought I was looking everywhere but as I started to turn to final, another aircraft showed up on my windscreen. I am not sure it was a near miss but it was too close for comfort and I was never able to find the pilot of the other aircraft to figure out what happened. But, whether or not it was his error rather than mine really doesn’t matter because the results won’t have been catastrophic for both of us.
Personally, I think pilots can never be too vigilant. Maintaining a good scan and remembering to see and avoid no matter what phase of flight cannot be overemphasized.
I’d still would never give up my ADS-B I/O but I agree, sometimes they are supposed to be out there but I can’t see’em.
They’re are still many problems with ADS-B. It’s is a good idea but not something I would bet my life on.
I’d have to commend the pilot for doing s-turns during his descent, something probably not always done. But with blinds spots and workload, it isn’t always possible to be scanning constantly in all directions left and right and up and down.
ADSB is a pretty good assistant but that’s about it. I fly a Pilatus and an RV8. PC12 has ADSB in/out and RV has 1090ES out and dual in. I very regularly get traffic advisories from ATC that never show up on screen and regularly see traffic visually that’s not shown. It’s a nice add-on, but you certainly CAN NOT depend on it to show you all of the traffic. Keep your eyes out when in VMC.
I have just the opposite experience — Very frequent painting of other aircraft on ADS-B that I never acquire visually and sometimes not seen by ATC.
It would seem that all the modern ‘glass’ avionics in the GA dashboard are no better than the old ‘steam gauges’ when it comes to near-miss accident prevention. Human vigilance alone is inadequate to prevent collisions between high-speed flying machines. Birds and flying insects do it naturally, however that capability isn’t in our DNA. Back to the drawing board, design engineers.
Regards/J
I disagree that glass is no better than steam gauges!!! Is glass foolproof? Absolutely not however at a glass it gives more accurate and more overall information at a glance like for instance wind speed/direction traffic both visual and audible if properly equipped it gives terrain alerts also at a glass you see you everything you used to have to scan the traditional 6 pack to seeon one screen even small things like v speeds listed beside the airspeed tape and literally so much more …so the comments about adsb not showing all traffic part of that is an faa concern because personally I think ALL planes flying in 2023 should be adsb in/out equipped then id say that most everything will be visible now for me I live very close to a Charlie so the vast majority of people where I typically fly are so equipped but like with all technology nothing is foolproof and you shouldn’t totally depend on it you have to keep your head on a swivel and have good balance of looking outside and scanning inside ..I just felt like I needed to respond because when people say things like modern safety enhancements are no different than their analog counterparts that isn’t a true statement and doesn’t reflect educating the new generation of flyers on how to actually utilize new versus old to your advantage to be safer and more aware pilots…that’s like saying Google maps on our devices is no different than pulling out a papermap in our car 🤔 so let’s all be smart and aware and utilize the technology to help us be safer but also let’s not become so dependent on it that we forget to do the simple things like look outside be on the correct frequencies and communicate with each other when we’re in areas of known traffic