How to Survive a Mid Air Collision, Lessons Learned from over the Hudson River
Yesterday, 8 Aug 2009 over the Husdon river between Manhattan island and Hoboken, NJ a Eurocopter and Piper Cherokee collided and the resulting crash killed all nine passengers aboard both aircraft. It appears from eyewitness statements that the Eurocopter climbed into the path of the Cherokee from below.
Numbers bystanders took pictures of the incident. The pictures show that that the collision caused the helicopter's rotor blades to separate and removed the right wing of the Cherokee.
I have had the opportunity to fly both a Cherokee and I have a few hours in helicopters. Low wing aircraft have great visibility up and partial visibility in front of the wings sans the engine nacelle. Most helicopters have wonderful visibility up, down, right and left; but generally have no visibility to the rear unlike most fixed wing aircraft. It appears the two collided in each others historic blind spots- a truly lamentable situation.
Mid air collisions are not completely avoidable as long as aircraft have blind spots, and a pilots best defense is to recognize his blind spots and work to avoid them by thoroughly clearing those areas by turning, early and often.
There is a lot of technology coming to the for front of aviation in the last decade to help combat mid air collisions like Traffic Collision Avoidance Systems (TCAS) and other technology has been developed to increase the survivability of such a mid air mishap such as airframe ballistic recovery chutes. (The Cirrus designer insisted on making BRS systems available in the SR-20 after his own mid air incident)
What do our readers think are the best tools to avoid and/or survive a mid air collision in technology, training and pilot technique?
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Comments
Good points Jon...
This is really a sad story. I feel for the families of those involved.
There's an old saying that goes something like, "Don't ever let your plane get somewhere that your brain didn't get 5 minutes ago." Employing this philosophy has saved me more than once. In airspace as dense as the Hudson corridor, it pays to do some route study and know where to expect traffic from the river heliports and where the bug smashers normally cruise. Knowing where to clear for aircraft makes the task much more efficient (though we still have to look everywhere else, even if we don't expect any traffic from that direction.)
Anyone else?
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