Spreading the word about aviation safety

Midair collisions are about the most terrifying type of aviation accidents, elucidating as they do the inherent danger of air travel.

Accounts from survivors are pretty universal: “I didn’t see anything until well after it was too late.”

That’s exactly what Alaska Wildlife Trooper Levi Duell told crash investigators, according to a preliminary National Transportation Safety Board reported on in today’s Frontiersman. Duell was one of two pilots in a Jan. 31 midair collision in the Knik-Goose Bay Road area.

“He saw a momentary flash in the upper left corner of his windscreen, which was instantaneously followed by the collision,” the report says.

You’d think that pilots could do what motorists do — just keep any eye out for other traffic — but such an assumption ignores just how fast airplanes are traveling and differences in visibility. Planes move at speeds that outpace human reaction times and in weather conditions that can change just as fast.

Which is why pilots rely so heavily on radios to communicate their locations to each other. In areas of the state in which air traffic control towers aren’t available, pilots do their best to make sure they’re on the same frequency as everyone else flying in the area.

Verbal warnings are really the best possible way to make yourself aware of other aircraft in your vicinity before it’s too late.

Making sure pilots are on the same frequency becomes all the more necessary as more people — and thus more planes — move into the Mat-Su. We are a community that is often touted as having the most per-capita airports in the nation. As the area develops, the skies are only becoming more crowded.

That’s why the Federal Aviation Administration recently made moves to simplify the rules for which area uses which radio frequency. Rules went into effect in May. We reported on this change hoping that it would increase safety in our skies.

We see this most recent crash as an opportunity to remind our neighbors who fly of this change and the importance of communicating location and intent with others in the air.

We also learned another bit while reporting this story that we think is worth repeating here.

A witness to the crash also is an air traffic controller told us that pilots flying in the Mat-Su are often reluctant to bother Anchorage’s air traffic control tower. But they shouldn’t be. The controller said the Anchorage towers have a good picture of what’s happening on our side of Cook Inlet and pilots can use those towers even when flying without a transponder.

“We have very good radar out in this area,” the controller, Jennie Sandland said. “Pilots can call Anchorage and get traffic advisory services. Then they’ve got another set of eyes looking.”

We are grateful both pilots survived the latest crash, we’d prefer never to report another midair collision.