I was pretty impressed with myself that I got stopped in time to quickly dart into the FBO, landing in a record short distance. Unfortunately for me, they have changed the procedures at SMO since the last time I was there.
ASRS Reports
Confusion in tower contributes to near miss
Combine a short-staffed tower, very busy airspace, and the result is a near miss and a controller meltdown.
Airport truck ‘plays chicken’ with Mooney
After reaching rotation speed, I observed the airport vehicle cross the runway in front of me. It appeared he was playing chicken. I considered rejecting the takeoff but could not be certain the power changes and braking would help avoid the collision.
Complacency plays part in veteran pilot’s mistake
I attribute this incident to complacency on my part. I expected a clearance to land on Runway XXR, based on the winds, and when I saw the newly-resurfaced runway, I went for it. I am embarrassed by the fact that I would make such an error after so many years of flying.
Look, look, and look again
My takeaway is to look, look, and look again for aircraft that have turned for excessively long finals and also for planes doing wide (and I mean really wide) downwind legs. What you do about unwise training these days, I don’t know.
Confused student, busy traffic pattern bad combination
Unfortunately, my slow thinking led to me making a turn at the same time that the aircraft in front of me was already almost finished with their turn. This resulted in a near head-on collision.
Misjudgments, mistakes, and missing the big picture
Since I had cut off the PA28, I figured the only possibility was that I had turned into my crosswind turn too early. However, I was confused about this as the PA28 had reported being on crosswind at least a full minute before I had even started my crosswind turn, and I could not figure out as to how they would then end up behind me.
Tower contributes to near miss
I kept searching for the plane, climbing away from their flight path during this time, but even so, the traffic system indicated that we came within 100 vertical feet of each other.
Lesson learned: Don’t look at checklist while taxiing
When taxiing, one needs to be focused outside the airplane.