Flustered pilot questions his decisions in the pattern

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.

Visual flight from ZZZ1 to ZZZ in a Musketeer 23 under good, clear VMC. Spouse, a private pilot, recently certificated, was in right seat assisting with spotting traffic.

From about 10 miles south of ZZZ, we monitored AWOS and CTAF to determine that wind was calm and Runway XX was in use. I think I heard one airplane in the pattern and one planning “teardrop entry.” But there may have been more.

As we approached at pattern altitude from southwest for 45 entry to right downwind XX, I visually spotted an aircraft a mile or two north of us seemingly headed toward us and turning into what looked like an extended right base for Runway XX. It seemed an odd entry since we had heard a call for teardrop entry from the east, but it seemed far enough ahead that it wasn’t likely to be a factor.

Fixated on trying to track this airplane and its confusing entry, we didn’t notice any calls from any other planes in the pattern as we entered downwind. (We announced our intentions at 10 miles out, 5 miles out, 2 miles out, and as we entered downwind at midfield.)

As we established on right downwind XX at or maybe 100 feet below pattern altitude (1100-1200 MSL), I looked out to my left and down, and about 300 feet below me, and maybe 200-300 feet left and ahead, was another airplane, which I believe was a low-wing RV-12 (I think I remember the airplane in the pattern saying that type at some point).

I hadn’t heard a recent call from this airplane and its low position threw me off. Was it flying the pattern to land, to depart, or just maneuvering low through the area? Why was it so low? What were its intentions?

I self announced my location on the downwind again and said I had a low-wing airplane in sight in front of and below me…hoping that the pilot would hear my announcement and tell me what their plan was. I didn’t hear a call in reply.

Not liking where I was located relative to the other plane, and not knowing or understanding its intentions, I made an immediate, power-at-idle curving short approach to land with full flaps and an aggressive slip to get on the ground and out of the way of whatever this airplane was doing. I announced short approach as I lined up to land.

As I was about to touch down, I heard one airplane say to another airplane, “Did you see that? That guy was crazy! He was only a couple hundred feet from me!”

The two people sounded like they may have known each other.

I rolled out, cleared the runway, announced being clear of the runway, and taxied to the fuel island for fuel, where I shut down off to the side to wait for a fueling airplane to clear the pump area.

It wasn’t clear at the time if the pilots speaking about what sounded like a near miss were talking about me and I still don’t know.

But given where I had found myself, relatively near another airplane, it’s possible that the other plane started turning base to land as I was also turning to land, and it may have come closer to me than I saw. Nothing came of it in the end, but it unsettled me.

Did I do the right thing? How did I get in that situation? What could I learn from the experience?

Contributing factors that I think may have been at play, after a few hours of reflection:

• This was my first time landing at this airport.
• This was only my second time flying with my newly-certificated spouse in the right seat.
• My ADS-B In/Out transponder had inexplicably refused to allow my ForeFlight iPad to connect for this flight, and we had no in-panel ADS-B in traffic display.
• Though current with 27 landings in the past 90 days and a private pilot check ride only four months prior, I had not been flying as much in the past two months as I would have liked — or I was doing during private pilot training — so I was not at the top of my game.
• I trained with and normally always fly with an ADS-B-In traffic display, and my written personal minimums required either working ADS-B-In or a pilot in the right seat to assist with traffic spotting. Since I had the latter, I went ahead with the flight. Perhaps I should not have.

In hindsight, I probably should have taken the time to troubleshoot the ADS-B problem and tried harder to get the traffic display working. That alone could very well have avoided any near miss that may have occurred.

I should have been especially wary of task saturation going into an unfamiliar airport with multiple other planes in the pattern given my lack of recent pattern practice at busy non-towered airports. I should have been wary of relying too heavily on my spouse for traffic spotting assistance, given that we did not have an established history of flying together and collaborating on that.

I should have avoided approaching the pattern when I didn’t have all traffic identified and in sight. I could have easily remained clear of the pattern and waited a few minutes to get a better handle on what was going on.

When I found myself so close to another airplane on downwind, and unsure about its intentions, I should have found a way to leave the pattern rather than elect to do a short approach, which focused my attention on landing and took my eyes off that traffic.

Lots of alarms should have gone off in my head that I was becoming flustered, task saturated, and was allowing an impulsive mindset to drive my decision-making.

I should have noted before my flight that I hadn’t flown much in the past month or so, and so should have been especially wary of situations like this developing in a non-towered airport environment, where people often do strange things (like fly a way-too-low pattern or fail to clearly announce their position and intentions).

Not a great experience. Though my spouse felt “it wasn’t a big deal,” it was disturbing enough to me as a very safety-minded person that I figured it might be beneficial to write it up.

Primary Problem: Human Factors

ACN: 2182346

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