Instructors always try to impart a healthy respect for other traffic. Students are reminded to look both ways before taxiing, check for aircraft on final before entering a runway, and clear the airspace prior to beginning maneuvers. Eventually they learn to watch for possible conflicts before entering the traffic pattern and during every leg thereafter. This attention seems to pay off: Midair collisions remain among the rarest of all aviation accidents. Including both airplanes and helicopters, there have been 238 nationwide during the past 20 years, an average of one a month. That’s still too many, yet it’s just two-thirds of 1 percent of all GA accidents during that time.
However, a disproportionate number of midairs take place on training flights. Instructional flights were involved in 13 percent of all fixed-wing GA accidents, but these included 31 percent of all midair collisions and 45 percent of the fatal midairs. Just 6 percent of all fatal GA accidents took place during flight instruction.
About half the midair collisions in U.S. airspace occur in airport traffic patterns, the scene of a lot of instructional flying. Having a second set of eyes doesn’t help as much as you might think: Less than one-quarter of training midairs were on student solos, although that’s probably still more than their corresponding share of flight time. It’s not too surprising that training flights face increased collision risk. Students have to devote more attention to managing the aircraft than more experienced pilots, leaving less for other worries. Instructors must divide their time between monitoring the student and looking outside, and instrument students won’t see traffic at all. The training environment is one situation in which the combined efforts of two people may be less effective at identifying threats than one pilot flying solo.
The problem is magnified when a lot of training goes on in the same place. In 2008, a Piper Seminole and a Cessna 172 collided in a charted alert area noted on the Miami sectional as “concentrated flight training activity.” Perhaps even worse was the 2001 accident in which two Cessnas operated by the same flight school hit head-on while practicing ground reference maneuvers over the same landmark.
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Instructors always try to impart a healthy respect for other traffic. Students are reminded to look both ways before taxiing, check for aircraft on final before entering a runway, and clear the airspace prior to beginning maneuvers. Eventually they learn to watch for possible conflicts before entering the traffic pattern and during every leg thereafter. This attention seems to pay off: Midair collisions remain among the rarest of all aviation accidents. Including both airplanes and helicopters, there have been 238 nationwide during the past 20 years, an average of one a month. That’s still too many, yet it’s just two-thirds of 1 percent of all GA accidents during that time.
However, a disproportionate number of midairs take place on training flights. Instructional flights were involved in 13 percent of all fixed-wing GA accidents, but these included 31 percent of all midair collisions and 45 percent of the fatal midairs. Just 6 percent of all fatal GA accidents took place during flight instruction.
About half the midair collisions in U.S. airspace occur in airport traffic patterns, the scene of a lot of instructional flying. Having a second set of eyes doesn’t help as much as you might think: Less than one-quarter of training midairs were on student solos, although that’s probably still more than their corresponding share of flight time. It’s not too surprising that training flights face increased collision risk. Students have to devote more attention to managing the aircraft than more experienced pilots, leaving less for other worries. Instructors must divide their time between monitoring the student and looking outside, and instrument students won’t see traffic at all. The training environment is one situation in which the combined efforts of two people may be less effective at identifying threats than one pilot flying solo.
The problem is magnified when a lot of training goes on in the same place. In 2008, a Piper Seminole and a Cessna 172 collided in a charted alert area noted on the Miami sectional as “concentrated flight training activity.” Perhaps even worse was the 2001 accident in which two Cessnas operated by the same flight school hit head-on while practicing ground reference maneuvers over the same landmark.
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Instructors always try to impart a healthy respect for other traffic. Students are reminded to look both ways before taxiing, check for aircraft on final before entering a runway, and clear the airspace prior to beginning maneuvers. Eventually they learn to watch for possible conflicts before entering the traffic pattern and during every leg thereafter. This attention seems to pay off: Midair collisions remain among the rarest of all aviation accidents. Including both airplanes and helicopters, there have been 238 nationwide during the past 20 years, an average of one a month. That’s still too many, yet it’s just two-thirds of 1 percent of all GA accidents during that time.
However, a disproportionate number of midairs take place on training flights. Instructional flights were involved in 13 percent of all fixed-wing GA accidents, but these included 31 percent of all midair collisions and 45 percent of the fatal midairs. Just 6 percent of all fatal GA accidents took place during flight instruction.
About half the midair collisions in U.S. airspace occur in airport traffic patterns, the scene of a lot of instructional flying. Having a second set of eyes doesn’t help as much as you might think: Less than one-quarter of training midairs were on student solos, although that’s probably still more than their corresponding share of flight time. It’s not too surprising that training flights face increased collision risk. Students have to devote more attention to managing the aircraft than more experienced pilots, leaving less for other worries. Instructors must divide their time between monitoring the student and looking outside, and instrument students won’t see traffic at all. The training environment is one situation in which the combined efforts of two people may be less effective at identifying threats than one pilot flying solo.
The problem is magnified when a lot of training goes on in the same place. In 2008, a Piper Seminole and a Cessna 172 collided in a charted alert area noted on the Miami sectional as “concentrated flight training activity.” Perhaps even worse was the 2001 accident in which two Cessnas operated by the same flight school hit head-on while practicing ground reference maneuvers over the same landmark.
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