Colorado Mid-Air 17 Sept 2022

it's Thursday the 22nd of September my name is Juan Brown you're watching The Blanco lyrio Channel and back on 17 September we had yet another mid-air Collision this time a Cessna 172 with a student and instructor on board collided with a Sonic's xenos home-built aircraft near Niwot Road or in Boulder County Colorado near Longmont Colorado here's what we know so far on board the Cessna 172 was a 22 year old CFI and a 23 year old student pilot on board the xenos aircraft was a 69 year old Private Pilot and here on Catherine's report according to flight tracking data the 172 left Rocky Mountain Metropolitan airport in Broomfield about 8 43 a.m and flew North on a training flight the Sonic xenos left Platte Valley Air Park in Hudson at about 8 38 a.m and flew West officials said both aircraft were at about 7 000 feet above sea level remember the terrain in this area is about 5 000 feet so they're about 2 000 feet above the ground one the Cessna 172 made a right turn and the flight Paths of the two planes merged now it says here neither aircraft was in contact with air traffic control and neither aircraft was equipped with a collision avoidance system well they may not have had a proper Airline style t-cas system but it's apparent from the data that they did have adsb data in and out at least out here's the adsb data from adsbexchange.com of the Cessna 172 departing Rocky Mountain Airport heading north to a practice area which has several other airports nearby here in Longmont and there are practicing some turns at about 7 200 feet and then they do a right hand turn descending to about 6 700 feet when the data stops right here on Niwot Road here's the adsb data from the sonics aircraft departing Platte Valley Airport heading west at about an altitude of 6 700 feet approaching Niwot Road when the Collision occurs here's a picture of the accident aircraft 2117 Yankee taken from a couple of years ago when it last sold a 2004 Cessnas Skyhawk SP and looking at the panel it's got some fairly late model avionics which would include adsb out and I assume adsb in as well the xenos B is a kit-built aircraft by Sonics and is a motor glider design with a butterfly or v-tail and semi monocoque aluminum Construction both aircraft came to a rest fairly close to each other on the 10 000 block of Niwot road somewhere right in here as we look at the sectional chart we can begin to get an idea of just how busy this airspace is the accident occurred just south of Longmont here on Niwot Road and is just underneath the outside edge of the Denver Class B airspace now when it comes to traffic collisions we know that in the traffic pattern is your highest chance or probability of being involved in a mid-air collision and I would argue that next to being in the traffic pattern particularly at uncontrolled airports the next highest most likely spot for mid-air potential mid-air collisions is right around the edges of this class B airspace Class B airspaces we've discussed before is shaped like an inverted wedding cake and is there primarily to keep traffic separated airliners versus general aviation aircraft the airliners on the IFR flight plans are to remain within the class B air airspace so they have positive radar contact and radar control the whole time they come in on the approach and Landing just outside the corners of this class B air space you're allowed to operate without having to talk to the air traffic controllers in other words you need a clearance in order to enter Class B airspace but you can operate freely just outside the limits of Class B airspace so a lot of Pilots a lot of VFR general aviation Pilots spend a lot of their time just on the outside of this airspace another thing to note about class B airspace is this 30 nautical mile adsb out and mode c-ring you're required to have adsb out and mode C anywhere within 30 nautical miles of the Class B airspace whether you're inside the airspace or outside of the airspace right here is Platte Valley Air Park where the sonics departed from an uncontrolled airport underneath the lateral limits of the Class B airspace and over here is the tower controlled Rocky Mountain Airport where the 172 departed from and here's the limits of their airspace shown in the dotted Blue Line the accident occurred here south of Longmont near two other uncontrolled or non-tower airport if you will near Niwot Colorado so this is a practice apparently this is a practice area that the training schools from out of Rocky Mountain Airport like to use just to the north of the airport and it sandwiches you you below the class B airspace well right here you're at got to stay at or below 10 000 feet over here where the sonics departed from he's got to remain at or below 7000 feet to remain clear of the airspace now you can get VFR traffic advisories possibly from Denver control but they're very busy handling the class B airspace so it's like more likely than not that you may be denied VFR flight following while operating just outside the limits of the Class B airspeed airspace if the controllers are not that busy they will gladly handle you as VFR traffic and give you that extra set of eyes for potential traffic conflicts but often in training environments they are operating on their own see and avoid VFR and this accident highlights the limits of C in a void you simply cannot see and avoid all the traffic all the time there are simply too many blind spots and too many different types of aircraft and in this situation where you have the sonics droning along fairly straight and level now that Sonics has good visibility because as the Pilot's well ahead of the low Wing a typical low Wing versus high Wing situation is someone what mitigated by this but the Cessna 172 with its high wind configuration if it's doing a right hand turn towards the sonics aircraft he may very well not see that Sonic's aircraft while completing that right hand turn and they could easily come together from one of the blind spots in the Cessna 172. investigators will also be looking at the sun angle at 9 A.M in the morning with the sun rising out of the East and possibly the condition of the windscreen in the sesta 172. when you go to cleaning your windshields it's important to the Plexiglas on the windshield I like to clean the windshields using a vertical swiping motion instead of a swirling motion to try to avoid the swirls which will dig into the Plexiglas over the years limiting your visibility especially at low Sun angles also too the sonics may have a bit of a blind spot ahead and Below its nose as it's got relatively large panel and engine of course like any single engine aircraft mounted right in front of the pilot now when we're cruising VFR even without any radar assistance from flight control we fly VFR hemispheric altitudes even an odd plus 500 depending on whether you're eastbound or westbound but that altitude separation of a thousand feet depending on which direction you're going only begins above 3000 feet above the ground these two aircraft are operating just two thousand feet above the ground remaining below the class B airspace no one aircraft design can survive a mid-air Collision any better than any other aircraft design the forces are simply too great but when an eyewitness says the two airplanes came together and just crumpled up and fell vertically out of the sky you know you've got a pretty accurate eyewitness report both the sonics and the Cessna and the luskum are all semi-monocoque construction aircraft monocox single shell Construction semi monocot because they have the longrons and the bulkheads in them and the monocoque construction is very strong is a very strong and lightweight structure however when damaged or dented that monocot construction can fail very quickly in just a crumple sort of fashion other aircraft like the aviat Husky and the piper in the Super Cub series of aircraft are built with a 4130 chromoly welded fuselage which is a bit stronger airframe Style but a bit heavier but it's still not any better handling a mid-air Collision more than anything else mid-air collisions have been studied for years we Average Joe anywhere from 10 to 15 mid-air collisions here in the U.S every year this study here using I believe simulated data identified these areas in the United States and of course it's where the busy air space is where the class B airspace right around the edges of the Class B airspace and they've determined where some of these potentials are and if we scroll down here to Denver North East and Northeast right here where this here it is where this accident occurred sure enough they identified some potential Collision areas shown in purple are the collisions in level flight ironically enough and shown in green are Collision potential areas due to parallel approaches due to uh going into parallel runways at Rocky Mountain Metro Airport so what can we do to mitigate the potential for mid-air collisions mid-air collisions can happen to any of us any experience level it scares the hell out of us see and avoid we got to realize the limitations of c and avoid we've got to add all the different tools in the toolbox including adsb in and using for flight and what I found very important getting for flight to sync with your headphones so that you get a audio warning through your headphones of a potential traffic conflict so that you can keep your head outside of the cockpit the idea with tcass in the airlines is that you get an audible warning first then you look down at the tcast you find the target identify the range and um direction from the aircraft and then get your head out of the cockpit and begin to look for that traffic now in tcass in the airlines they're very Advanced and that will give you also a resolution advisory it'll tell you exactly how to fly the aircraft using just the instruments to avoid the traffic collision in general aviation I found most of the time with foreflight if you get the traffic warning you can easily find that aircraft and take the evasive action you need to avoid that aircraft without being heads down buried in the cockpit in the glass panel thanks so much for your support of this channel especially the folks over on patreon that make this content possible see you here [Music] foreign

Channel: blancolirio

Views: 131,075

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Id: slFaJls_Xso

Length: 13min 28sec (808 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 23 2022