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.
Me and my instructor took off from ZZZ in a Skylane 182. After following the noise abatement procedure, we flew almost direct to ZZZ1. As we are getting close to the waypoint, we turned right for a little to avoid traffic coming from ZZZ1.
Not long after our turn, we immediately saw two Hornet fighters blasting heads-on towards us on the left.
My instructor immediately took evasive action by going down and banking the aircraft left. After they passed us, another fighter immediately passed us on the right.
It all happened in a few seconds.
It felt like a very close call — we were probably only a few hundred feet away, if not less.
On the communication side, after we took off from ZZZ, we got in touch with Approach as we’re heading towards ZZZ3 and that is the nearest box for Approach frequency. We requested flight following to ZZZ3 and Approach just assigned us the squawk code.
The event took place right after I put in the squawk code to the transponder and Approach asked us if we saw the Hornet fighters right after the event.
We discussed the event with the ATC once we cleared the area and the adrenaline settled down. According to them, the fighters were on Center frequency while we were on the Approach channel, hence they weren’t able to give us a heads-up before it happened.
We also did not see the traffic coming. They did not show up on the ADS-B traffic display and, considering we were right on top of the lake, we probably were not in range of any ADS-B ground station and/or the fighters did not use Mode-C/S transponders or ADS-B out.
Reflecting on the event, we should’ve been more careful when choosing the frequency we talk to as the A/FD does specify Center for Approach.
Primary Problem: Procedure
ACN: 1992142
Not in the above write up but go look at the NASA report. It states “Altitude.MSL.Single Value : 9460”. We don’t know how high AGL this was but unless it was the mountains it is probably 5000+ AGL. This to me is a factor. F-18’s would be the Navy which might be in the mountains but more than likely not.
1) Is there too much reliance on technology in this case? ADS-B and or RADAR coverage. Yes, I think so.
2) Was this on a Military Training route? We don’t know
3) Was it near a Military base?
4) The F-18 is a large aircraft, should make it easier to see but also may affect ones ability to determine how close they came. He said a few hundred feet? Kind of vague but implies less than 1,000 feet maybe? (it may have been completely correct estimate, we just don’t know)
Lets see… the military doesn’t operate radios or even have radios they can hear civilian operations. They don’t have to abide by the same regulations that we do. The pilots aren’t even required to have FAA certificates.
Well, why in this case no one blame the learner and the instructor not to dealing the radio in the Center frequency?
I personally do!
We’d have to know more details, but generally for general aviation altitudes, it’s approach control’s airspace except for places where there is a gap in approach control coverage.
I can closely relate to this close call. In 2018, we were downwind in closed traffic at KMRY when two Thunderbird F-16s blasted over the top of us within a few hundred feet. I knew it was that close because the cockpit immediately filled with the smell of their exhaust. Somehow they were cleared for a low pass without being informed we were in the pattern, while executing a wide turn back to the Salinas airshow 11 miles away. The tower operators at MRY still talk about this incident! I filed a NASA, talked to Tower and the local FISDO. There was a serious investigation but I never heard the outcome. The whole affair shook me up badly – we were so close to being blasted into small pieces!
The US Military is also required to see and avoid in VMC. We had this kind of problem years ago in NE Ohio with, as just one example, C-130s flying through patterns because they had just completed some function (Ravena assult strip) and were now cleaning up for climb. And then there was the night flight with NO LIGHTS or very dim lights while using night vision goggles (YNG, Mansfield OH, and others). Many complaints were filed for these airspace violations. So the pilot of a Hornet and their RIO can eject. The GA aircraft usually end up in pieces and no one in them survives.
Example was an F15 (if I remember this correctly) was doing low altitude high speed (above 250KTS) and center punched a GA aircraft climbing up to TPA. I forgot the airport for this, it was not in NE Ohio. By the time the pilot saw the GA aircraft it was too late to avoid, so he ejected.
Just say’n’.