Georgetown, TX - MIDAIR Collision

I have been in the pattern at a "controlled" field where the controller
issued instructions for a plane "behind me" in the patter to start base from
downwind while I was on final. We would have collided. Neither the
controller nor the other pilot had the situational awareness needed to stop
a collision. Thankfully I did.

Control towers are not always the answer.


"Nasir" wrote in message
. com...

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...
"Nasir" wrote in message
. com...
[...]
Georgetown airport needs a control tower. It is long over due!!! The
traffic
is hectic... This accident could have been prevented if we had a
tower.
We
all need to educate the city council before we have a worst tragedy.

Sounds like it also could have been prevented if the Extra pilot had
looked
out for traffic already on final. The guy who wrote that account should
probably be informed that number of operations is what affects whether a
control tower is at an airport or not, rather than number of accidents.

Pete

Georgetown is a very busy field. On clear days, its an excersize to fit
yourself into the pattern because there are so many in already. This
accident could have also been avoided if both pilots had made position
reports. Since that is not a requirement, a control tower would have also
prevented this miscommunication (or lack of communication) based accident.
I
think thats what the guy meant.

-Nasir

Richard Hertz wrote:

Control towers are not always the answer.

That's true, but it's one additional person that must make a mistake (or
lose awareness) for something bad to happen. It's not a perfect solution,
but it does improve the odds.

It's a mistake to *depend* upon the tower, though. There's someone with
whom I'll no longer fly because he one refused to shift his approach to
avoid an aircraft because the (class D tower) had "cleared" him for entry
to the downwind. That same person immediately placed all blame upon that
same tower for a midair there a while back.

- Andrew

"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message
online.com...
That's true, but it's one additional person that must make a mistake (or
lose awareness) for something bad to happen.

It's also one additional person who can make a mistake and create a
hazardous situation where none previously existed.

It's not a perfect solution, but it does improve the odds.

Are you sure? I've never seen any statistics that prove that a tower
"improves the odds". Due to the additional failure modes, it could just as
easily reduce the odds. There are lots of examples of where adding manpower
doesn't improve efficiency, quality, or safety. This might be one of them.

Pete

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...
"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message
online.com...
That's true, but it's one additional person that must make a mistake (or
lose awareness) for something bad to happen.

It's also one additional person who can make a mistake and create a
hazardous situation where none previously existed.

It's not a perfect solution, but it does improve the odds.

Are you sure? I've never seen any statistics that prove that a tower
"improves the odds". Due to the additional failure modes, it could just
as
easily reduce the odds. There are lots of examples of where adding
manpower
doesn't improve efficiency, quality, or safety. This might be one of
them.

From 1st January 1989 to 30 June 1999, seventeen mid-air collisions were
reported in French Territory.

Twelve collisions occurred in uncontrolled airspace (UA). Three took place
in controlled airspace (CA) in which radio contact was not compulsory.
Finally, there were two accidents in controlled airspace where radio contact
was compulsory.
In three cases, one of the two aircraft was passing from controlled airspace
to uncontrolled airspace.

http://www.bea-fr.org/etudes/abordageseng/midair.htm

Peter Duniho wrote:

Due to the additional failure modes, it could just
as
easily reduce the odds.

I'm not sure how you're seeing this. All additional failure modes are
independent of anything that exists w/o the tower. That is, any way that
the tower can fail has no impact on the "see & avoid" technique that would
be present with or without a tower.

At least, this is what I see. What do you see differently?

- Andrew

"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message
online.com...
[...]
I'm not sure how you're seeing this. All additional failure modes are
independent of anything that exists w/o the tower. That is, any way that
the tower can fail has no impact on the "see & avoid" technique that would
be present with or without a tower.

A tower failure mode can introduce a situation where a pilot who would
otherwise have been more diligent about "see & avoid" might wind up relaxing
their efforts, resulting in a crash. Mid-airs in Class D airspace very
likely almost always involve at least to some degree this effect.

The failure modes are NOT independent.

Pete