Colorado • Cirrus hits Metroliner on (parallel) final • all survive.

[Garfly]

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/plane-crash-denver-centennial-airport-mid-air-collision-parachute-2021-5?r=US&IR=T

 

 

 

 

 

[Student Pilot]

There seems to be a certain sort of pilot that flies a Cirrus.......

[Garfly]

One story doing the rounds is that this Cirrus pilot was a student type - on his first solo. (Though another mentioned a pax.)  Amazing that the Metroliner held together and that its control cables stayed in control.  Close parallel runways like that must be a real hazard. The Cirrus pilot did report the Metroliner in sight at one point but his attention would have then moved on to the threshold. Maybe he forgot that he was cleared for 17R and was lining up on the left one.

[Garfly]

 

 

[alf jessup]

Never need to ever buy a lotto ticket those guys in the Metro, amazing it held together.

[Kenchhidu]

7 hours ago, Garfly said:

One story doing the rounds is that this Cirrus pilot was a student type - on his first solo.

The Cessna behind the Cirrus was the student on his first solo. The shirt back has a hilarious picture drawn on it. Definitely a solo to remember. 

 

[Yenn]

The Cirrus pilot overshot his runway and must have crossed the metroliner at nearly 90 degrees. That the metroliner could lose half of its cabin diameter and still not fall apart is amazing. All the loads rom the elevator would have been in that remaining section of the fuselage.

[facthunter]

yeah the Metro is lucky to have stayed in one piece. I didn't think controllers would put planes in such a situation with parallel runways just assuming the pilot would not overshoot the centreline or stuffed up the runway designation.  Ridiculous place to be doing a first solo too. . Lottery ticket for theMetro crew and the chute is not always worth much in a mid air collision. There's a lot of forces at play..Nev

[Garfly]

Sure, you'd expect that mid-air collisions might damage BRS systems, causing them to fail - and that's no doubt happened. On the other hand, there was that memorable incident in Germany, in Sept. 2014, where a Zenair locked loins with a glider - parallel runways again - and both aircraft descended under a single canopy saving all three souls. Go figure.

 

 

 

 

 

This is how it was reported on another forum at the time:

"Hey guys at Sky Ranger Group.

We had a midair collision this weekend in Koblenz Winninden between a glider with 17yrs old pilot and a microlight Zensir 601. Both wanted to land at the same airfield on parallel runways. In as far as I heard 200 mtr height (600 ft AGL) they collided and stuck together.

Why did I tell you this? Apart from the fact that midairs often happen around airfields and one should be careful and use the radio propperly...

The Zenair was equipped with a rescue system. The pilot immediately fired it up and both aircraft, still stuck to each other and all 3 passengers safely landed on that one parachute.... See the pictures. I found it curious, what has been posted here, questions of rescue system coming up several times.  BTW: In Germany a rescue system is mandatory to have in micro lights...

Best regards and always happy landings, Volker Engelmann."

 

 

 

Edited May 15, 2021 by Garfly

[aro]

On 13/05/2021 at 1:36 PM, Student Pilot said:

There seems to be a certain sort of pilot that flies a Cirrus.......

According to the report I read the collision occurred 3 miles from the threshold, and the runways are 200m apart. My 1 in 60 calculation gives a margin of error of around 1 degree at that distance (or maybe 1/2 a degree, if you want to ensure some separation between the aircraft). If the Cirrus actually flew through the opposite centreline he was misaligned by 2 degrees. That seems pretty high precision to ask of a visual alignment. I'm not sure about tolerances for an ILS.

[MattP]

The runways at Moorabbin are only 200m apart as well, and its class D with separate tower frequencies and contra circuits too, no issue with visual traffic in the circuit generally. As for doing this in the Cirrus, if you're visual, actually looking out the window and have your speed under control, contrary to popular belief you don't need to deploy CAPS to land. It won't snap roll if your speed goes below 150 knots or any other rubbish, its actually pretty sweet to hand fly. It responds just like any other relatively high performance single.

 

One thing you do need to watch out for descending and joining downwind is speed control, especially if you've started an IFR approach and are doing a continuous descent, then go visual. Its easy to build up speed so you need to think ahead. I did see somewhere that he was at about 160+ knots (not sure if that is ground speed and what density alt etc makes the actual TAS), which isn't where you want to be on base (100 IAS is normally good). I'm sure the investigation will figure out what happened, but either way regardless of how he got to where he should not have been, given the turn to final and where the Metro was coming from, I doubt he would have had a chance to see him.

 

One thing I've seen people ask about on other forums is the traffic screen and alerts on the G1000, which is nice but in the circuit doing parallel ops like that it goes off all the time due to proximity. I would not be surprised to see that this one was a classic case of head down when it should have been up and letting the plane get ahead of him. Either way a good one to watch and also a great outcome all things considered, as everyone got to go home that night.

[aro]

12 minutes ago, MattP said:

The runways at Moorabbin are only 200m apart as well, and its class D with separate tower frequencies and contra circuits too, no issue with visual traffic in the circuit generally.

There is a big difference between flying a circuit to a parallel runway and joining a 3 mile final. If the reports are accurate, this was the equivalent of aircraft from opposite directions joining straight in approaches to parallel runways from the boundary of the class D at Moorabbin, i.e. over the beach at Aspendale.

 

17 minutes ago, MattP said:

I did see somewhere that he was at about 160+ knots (not sure if that is ground speed and what density alt etc makes the actual TAS), which isn't where you want to be on base (100 IAS is normally good).

Would you typically be at 100 KIAS 3 miles from the airfield or a higher speed? If you are mixing with larger aircraft, keeping the speed up until closer in may be desirable.

[MattP]

2 minutes ago, aro said:

There is a big difference between flying a circuit to a parallel runway and joining a 3 mile final. If the reports are accurate, this was the equivalent of aircraft from opposite directions joining straight in approaches to parallel runways from the boundary of the class D at Moorabbin, i.e. over the beach at Aspendale.

There's a plot of the tracks on prune that someone's put together and he wasn't joining right on final, he'd maneuvered to be on a right base from a mid (wide) downwind, so no different to joining at Ricketts point off the NDB.

 

7 minutes ago, aro said:

Would you typically be at 100 KIAS 3 miles from the airfield or a higher speed? If you are mixing with larger aircraft, keeping the speed up until closer in may be desirable.

That all depends, if I need to be then yes I will, often you need to wait for slower aircraft at somewhere like YMMB but lets say I'm doing an ILS and need to keep the speed up, I will but that will depend on my ability to slow and get configured (flaps etc). Generally if you're on an RNAV or ILS you may configure as far back as 10 miles (flaps 1) which gives you about 120kias max in the Cirrus. If he was at 160+ he wasn't even configured, and had no hope of slowing down. Either way whilst I want to be as courteous as possible for someone behind me, ultimately I won't do that at the expense of my ability to safely conduct the flight.

 

If its visual and the tower says hurry it along, then same thing, noted and taken under advisement but they're not saying peg it to VNE, its more go the safest max speed you can if possible.

[facthunter]

Yes it's not fixed and sometimes you will keep speed up to help other traffic fit in. You should be "stabilised" at   a height of about 600' for bigger stuff and whatever the Ops manual says for your aircraft. Holding speeds are given a maximum. and sometimes circuit speeds.. . Downwind max on One plane was 145 knots.. This often means you will have a fair bit of flap out. Nev

[aro]

36 minutes ago, MattP said:

he'd maneuvered to be on a right base from a mid (wide) downwind, so no different to joining at Ricketts point off the NDB

If your base leg is outside the CTR. According to the reports, the collision occurred as he turned final, 3 miles from the airport. I worked out earlier the margin for error with parallel runways at that distance is about 1 degree. Hard to judge visually.

 

Someone else worked out the density altitude was 10500, so TAS would have been significantly higher than IAS. I don't know whether the 160K figure is IAS or ground speed - my guess would be ground speed from ADSB.

[turboplanner]

1 hour ago, aro said:

There is a big difference between flying a circuit to a parallel runway and joining a 3 mile final. If the reports are accurate, this was the equivalent of aircraft from opposite directions joining straight in approaches to parallel runways from the boundary of the class D at Moorabbin, i.e. over the beach at Aspendale.

 

Would you typically be at 100 KIAS 3 miles from the airfield or a higher speed? If you are mixing with larger aircraft, keeping the speed up until closer in may be desirable.

Most training aircraft in the circuit are at 100-105 kts flat out. You'd normally slow to 100 as you let down then if you are behind a 152, maybe 1 stage of flap and 90 kts, or if you join ahead of a Baron and don't want the spray - full throttle and early base turn and first exit.

[extralite]

On 13/05/2021 at 1:36 PM, Student Pilot said:

There seems to be a certain sort of pilot that flies a Cirrus.......

Seems a certain type of space cadet, know it all ever since they did their first solo, chip on shoulders,  judgemental types attracted to aviation as well. You weren't there, you probably arent perfect yourself.

[MattP]

13 hours ago, aro said:

Someone else worked out the density altitude was 10500, so TAS would have been significantly higher than IAS. I don't know whether the 160K figure is IAS or ground speed - my guess would be ground speed from ADSB

Yeah, just saw this was gs so accounting for density he was around the right speed. 
Why  he misjudged the turn is the critical question and I’m guessing until the pilot talks about it to the investigators were all just speculating.

 

[facthunter]

I would suggest it is pretty difficult to judge unless you are pretty fluent in formating.. I thought even with both RWY's having ILS (which doesn't seem to be the case) you still avoid the circumstances (manoeuvering proximity) of  this situation all being done visually. . Be large overload for anyone but more so with low experience. Nev

[Garfly]

20 hours ago, MattP said:

. I would not be surprised to see that this one was a classic case of head down when it should have been up ...

Maybe, but I find it hard to imagine; there are old pilots and bold pilots but no pilots I know, who don't fixate outside on their aiming point when on base/final (with stolen glances at ASI/AoA, the sole exception).  I wonder if he had it in his mind that he was cleared for 17L. Or just mistook it for the right one he was going for. Or just swung wider than he meant to; easy to do.  Anyway, I doubt the Metroliner would have been observable to him as he was turning final.  Of course, on base it's normal practice to look for (not to say, see) unannounced intruders on final, but at controlled strips you could get used to somebody else taking care of your traffic worries.  In any case, at one point, the Cirrus apparently did report the Metro in-sight but he would certainly have lost him when his attention turned right, towards the threshold(s).

I notice that controllers there append "Do not overshoot your final" to all landing clearances. But I suppose if you've landed there (and heard that) hundreds of times its urgency fades a bit. 

 

Anyway, at least in this case we will get to hear all about it from all the horses' mouths. 

Edited May 17, 2021 by Garfly

[MattP]

Given the direction of the turn and where they were relative to one another he would not have seen him, probably even as he hit him.

 

I haven’t seen anything on the pilot, ie his experience in operating at high da airports or if he was a local or from around there. There was a lot going around about him being solo etc but that was confusion with the Cessna.

 

I don’t know about pinning this on atc though, he was cleared visual and regardless of if you like it or not, that means it’s on him to get himself landed safely. The student soloing in a 172 ahead of him was doing it.

 

if you look at the vas aviation clip, he was told to follow the 172 so should have been slowing from 130ish anyhow knowing he had to slow to about 90 to not overrun him. If he followed the 172 around he would have been lined up, so I don’t know if he just saw the wrong runaway and lined up or took a wide turn for spacing or maybe had the ap on?

 

 

 

 

 

[pmccarthy]

I thought the student was following him. He overflew the downed Cirrus.

[Garfly]

I believe there were two Cessna's in the 17R circuit, one ahead of and one behind the Cirrus. The one behind was the first-solo student.

 

Here are bits of the discussion on Kathryn's Report

http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2021/05/cirrus-sr22-gts-g5-carbon-n416dj-and.html

 

1. UnknownThursday, May 13, 2021 at 12:48:00 PM EDT

   Looks like the cirrus may have been too fast on base?
   So glad everyone survived!

3. Reluctant_PosterThursday, May 13, 2021 at 2:00:00 PM EDT

   The FAA is going to be paying dearly for this one. Failed 7110.65 basic standard of duty. The Metro never even knew what hit him, as one retired controller put it on YT.

   Reply
   Replies

   • http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2021/05/cirrus-sr22-gts-g5-carbon-n416dj-and.html
     Hungry PilotThursday, May 13, 2021 at 4:54:00 PM EDT

     Why would the FAA be "paying dearly"? The Cirrus pilot overshot final for 17R and into the traffic that was called out to them as being on final for 17L. Basic see-and-avoid failure for the pilot of the Cirrus. He will be the one "paying dearly" for this mistake!

      
      
   • http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2021/05/cirrus-sr22-gts-g5-carbon-n416dj-and.html
     madmaxThursday, May 13, 2021 at 4:58:00 PM EDT

     Is that because if you are directing traffic to land on parallel runways they still have to ensure appropriate spacing so that you don't have two planes landing at the exact same time? I was thinking about what the controller could have done (and note that had one controller landing the commercial stuff largely on 17L and then another controller landing the 17R traffic) if you have a plane that fails to turn final because the time between overshooting final and crossing the approach path of the parallel runway is probably a second or less. Seems like they should have never allowed two plans landing on parallel runways to land at the same time that way.

      
      
   • http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2021/05/cirrus-sr22-gts-g5-carbon-n416dj-and.html
     CarlFriday, May 14, 2021 at 2:52:00 AM EDT

     I learned to fly at Centennial and have a lot of landings on both 17R/L. It is not at all uncommon to have near or simultaneous approaches to those runways. It is also normal to have split frequency operations to handle the traffic load. APA is a very busy airport at times. Between business aviation and GA training, it can get really busy. I think the controllers did what they could but as said previously, in this case see and avoid is paramount. The only surprise I had from a controller perspective was not immediately shutting the runway for possible FOD issues. Again, I wasn’t there in the moment and it is always easier after the fact. I will say that in my opinion the controllers at APA almost always did an outstanding job when I have flown in and out of there.

      
      
   • http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2021/05/cirrus-sr22-gts-g5-carbon-n416dj-and.html
     LidmanSunday, May 16, 2021 at 9:06:00 AM EDT

     I would say that the FAA and the controllers are about 90% at fault here. I can't believe they would allow parallel runway ops with GA pilot on visual. Who among us hasn't overshot final?

      
      
   • http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2021/05/cirrus-sr22-gts-g5-carbon-n416dj-and.html
     Reluctant_PosterSunday, May 16, 2021 at 11:25:00 AM EDT

     @Hungry Pilot Because that Order requires that all pertinent traffic be issued or controllers aren't authorized to run parallel runways. Yes, the Cirrus overshoot will be a cause, the very close parallel centerlines / finals will be a factor, but an ambiguous response from the Cirrus about the Metro and not even telling the Metro about the Cirrus at all is a violation of at least two or three different requirements of that Order. It was an unsafe operation with no form of separation ensured. Just watch what the NTSB ends up saying about that.

      
4. UnknownFriday, May 14, 2021 at 5:22:00 AM EDT

   Its a cargo Metro so possibly has a strengthened floor ?

    
    
5. Joseph Szarmach Jr.Friday, May 14, 2021 at 12:20:00 PM EDT

   I would think airplanes flying through final there would be a weekly occurance and the controllers would be on continuous lookout for this. A strong crosswind would make it all the more likely on any given day. An appropriately timed instruction to "go direct to numbers" would help keep an unfamiliar VFR airplane on the final approach course or, even better, on an angle and away from the parallel approach course. I believe the ATP guys at places like SFO fly at an angle on the parallel. That only works though if the pilot is looking at the correct runway. With digital services and traffic displays, I have to believe the tower had a display. It sounds like the controller was trying to CYA by telling the Cirrus not to over shoot after he already did. Perhaps he was distracted. I'd say 50% Cirrus and 50% controller since they should expect overshoots.

   Reply
    
    
6. http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2021/05/cirrus-sr22-gts-g5-carbon-n416dj-and.html
   MasterFriday, May 14, 2021 at 6:48:00 PM EDT

   as soon as you call traffic in sight, it's now your responsibility to maintain separation. The Cirrus called both the Cessna and Metro in sight. And no, controllers do not expect overshoots, especially from a plane that's based at the field.

   Reply
   Replies

   • http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2021/05/cirrus-sr22-gts-g5-carbon-n416dj-and.html
     ManariiSaturday, May 15, 2021 at 7:14:00 AM EDT

     Cirrus did not say he had both in sight - he said he had traffic, but did not say both. Listen to the communications.

      
      
   • http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2021/05/cirrus-sr22-gts-g5-carbon-n416dj-and.html
     ATCBrasilSaturday, May 15, 2021 at 11:14:00 AM EDT

     Correct - reply of the Cirrus pilot is unclear here (as ATC points out two aircraft at the same time). Question: Were both in sight?
     
     I am not flying Cirrus, but how can you turn immediately on base with such high speed following a slow Cessna for the same RWY and by knowing that you cannot/should overshot (due to parallel runway) the base/final turn? How do you plan to reduce excessive speed in this situation squeezed on the pattern and following a slow Cessna ahead? What's the plan here to ascertain the sequence when deciding to turn immediately on base after ATC points out that you are number 2 for 17L, following the Cessna turning final? How can you kill your speed here?

      
7. ImbdSunday, May 16, 2021 at 7:06:00 PM EDT

   Metro pilot gets an A+. He maintained an amazingly straight final with an engine failure, coupled or not. He also sounded as cool as a cucumber. Cirrus pilot get’s an F for flying thru their extended centerline when they had called the additional traffic in sight (the metro). Controller gets an F. As per the ATC recording. . . when the metro declares an emergency due to an engine out, ATC conducts business as usual including authorizing parallel approaches. Once the controller saw the collision he said “cirrus 416 delta juliet do not overshoot final, cirrus 416 delta juliet do you require assistance?” He obviously thought to CYA so that he could include in his statement that he warned the cirrus not to fly thru final. Nice try tower controller.

[Garfly]

Dan's Transport Safety Board already has a probable cause ...  ;- )

 

 

Edited May 20, 2021 by Garfly

[Garfly]

 

The NTSB final report is now out:

 

 

Report_CEN21FA215_103073_4_2_2023 3_13_06 AM.pdf

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/ntsb-says-midair-pilot-overshot-pattern-turns/?MailingID=1293

 

 

NTSB Says Midair Pilot Overshot Pattern Turns

By  Russ Niles  Published:April 1, 2023

 

 

"The NTSB has cited airmanship and an air traffic control failure in the midair collision of a Cirrus SR22 and a Key Lime Air Swearingen SA226TC at Centennial Airport in Englewood, Colorado on May 12, 2021. The board found that the Cirrus pilot was going at least 50 knots over the recommended speed as he prepared to land. As a result, he overshot his turns from downwind-to-base-to-final by so much he ended up crossing the extended centerline of the adjacent parallel runway. That’s exactly where the Swearingen happened to be and the Cirrus sliced through the twin’s fuselage. The Cirrus pilot activated the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS) and settled about three miles from the airport while the cargo plane, missing a big chunk of its fuselage, landed “uneventfully” according to the report. There were no injuries."

Edited April 2, 2023 by Garfly