Georgetown, TX - MIDAIR Collision

There was a midair at Georgetown yesterday. Apparently two planes were on
final and landed on top of each other. Both pilots had injuries but both
survived.

Anyone know more details on this? Was it lack of radio communication ..did
they just not announce positions or something else was involved?

-Nasir

Hope this helps:

http://www.faa.gov/avr/aai/I_0510_N.txt

http://www.faa.gov/avr/aai/M_0510_N.txt


"Nasir" wrote in message
om...
There was a midair at Georgetown yesterday. Apparently two planes were on
final and landed on top of each other. Both pilots had injuries but both
survived.

Anyone know more details on this? Was it lack of radio communication ..did
they just not announce positions or something else was involved?

-Nasir

In article ecWnc.132660$f_5.85331@lakeread01,
"tom418" writes:
Hope this helps:

http://www.faa.gov/avr/aai/I_0510_N.txt

http://www.faa.gov/avr/aai/M_0510_N.txt


I see that the reports say a "DA-40 Katana" was involved. I wonder if
it was a DA-40, or a Katana. I understand that Adventure has a DA-40...
I wonder if it was theirs.

Are there any Katanas at GTU?

I hope the Giles pilot's "unknown injuries" aren't too serious.

"Jeff Meininger" wrote in message
...
In article ecWnc.132660$f_5.85331@lakeread01,
"tom418" writes:
Hope this helps:

http://www.faa.gov/avr/aai/I_0510_N.txt

http://www.faa.gov/avr/aai/M_0510_N.txt


I see that the reports say a "DA-40 Katana" was involved. I wonder if
it was a DA-40, or a Katana. I understand that Adventure has a DA-40...
I wonder if it was theirs.

Are there any Katanas at GTU?

I hope the Giles pilot's "unknown injuries" aren't too serious.

Here is a first hand account of the accident:

Folks,

What we have been talking about, and fearing happened this afternoon at the
Georgetown airport. I was taxiing to the run-up area near runway 18 when I
saw a Diamond Star on short final. Then all of a sudden I saw a yellow and
blue Extra sport plane approaching fast from short left base to final. He
was higher and slipping down from behind as they usually do. At first I
could not believe my eyes. It looked like the Extra sport plane was going to
go around, or over the Diamond and then they collided about 50 feet in the
air. Both planes spun around in the air and landed on the runway. The
Diamond spun in and landed on its nose then settled on its mains. The Extra
did a flat spin and hit hard on the runway. It happened so fast. I don't
recall hearing any radio calls prior to the collision. Anyway, we stopped in
the run-up area and I got out and ran over to the wreckage on the runway.
The pilot of the Diamond was walking around in a daze and the Extra pilot
was laying on his back on the runway. When I got to him, he was in pain and
complaining about his back. He kept saying that he never saw the other
plane. We calmed him down until emergency personnel came. EMS, Fire
Department, DPS and Police were there in a very short time. The news media
was also there as usual.


Runway 18 is closed until tomorrow when the FAA investigator arrives and
does his thing.


Please...let us keep our heads up and out of the cockpit, look for other
traffic, and make position reports on the radio to let the other planes know
where you are.


Thank God the collision didn't occur over the homes near the end of the
runway and nobody was killed.


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.


I have attached some photos that I took of the crash site.


Fly Safely,

Bill Eldredge

"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

"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

In article ,
"Peter Duniho" writes:
"Nasir" wrote in message
. com...
[...]

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.


I should probably keep my mouth shut as I'm not even an official student
pilot yet... but the author of that account is Bill Eldredge, the chief
flight instructor at Wright Aviation (an FBO at GTU). I assume he knows
what he's talking about. Also, AFAIK, GTU has been trying to raise
money for a tower for a while now. I think they increased hangar rates
by a significant amount for just this reason.

Peter Duniho wrote:

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.

Could the problem be fixed by overhauling VFR pattern procedures? For
example, require all VFR aircraft to join the pattern the same way at
uncontrolled airports, rather than allowing them to come in from all
different directions. You seem to have a *lot* of midair collisions in the
pattern in the U.S.


All the best,


David

"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

The pilot that gave the first hand report knows that the number of
operations determines whether the airport can get a control tower.
GTU is estimated to have 100,000 take off and landings a year. (As
reported in the local paper.)
The FAA agreed to fund 50% of the tower in 2001. The pilots wanted
the tower to improve safety at the airport. The people who live near
the airport did not want the tower to be built because they thought it
would cause the airport to expand even more than it has. Because two
local airports (about 20 miles away) were shutdown, GTU has grown
faster then expected.
The anti airport people in the area would like to have the airport
closed. Since the decision to not build the tower in 2001, the
airshow was canceled after a Stearman crashed into a house during the
airshow in 2002. Since then, there has been a twin that landed in the
houses north of the airport. That was
in July of 2003. (The NTSB prel doesn't even get the location of the
accident correct.) In April of this year, a plane had to land on the
frontage road of I-35 near the airport, fortunately no one was hurt.
Now this.
One city official stated on TV that the FAA will now do a 90%
funded control tower at the airport.
GTU now has three flight training schools, teaching private,
instrument, commercial, multiengine, flight instructor, and
helicopters. In addition, it has a number of turbo prop and jets
based out of there. Add to that the army doing practice approaches,
formation flying, and some acrobatics based out of there. That means
that you have new students who think there is only one way to fly a
pattern, a large number of instrument students flying approaches and
the normal number of pilots with attitudes and lack of situational
awareness. For example, it is not a good idea to do a midfield
crossing into the pattern when another plane is doing an instrument
approach that will probably end in a missed approach procedure. It is
not a good idea to practice hovering upwind from the favored runway.
It is not a good idea to land on 11 when everyone else is landing on
18. So yes, in some ways GTU was an accident waiting to happen, and
it has.
It is fine to say that people should have been using their radios
and should have been looking for the other planes. But, until you
have been there, being a Monday quarterback is always easy and it is
easy to blame someone you don't know. I've heard it on these
newsgroups, with people assuming that only inexperienced pilots will
use the rudder to try to turn the plane on base to final. Pilots have
to learn that these things can happen to experienced pilots as well as
inexperienced pilots. I can't make any comments about what was done
correctly or incorrectly in this situation, because I wasn't there,
and like the rest of you, I don't know all of the details.
So, for those of you that do not fly out of the GTU airport, you
have the luxury of arguing that the building of control towers are a
function of the number of ops, not the number of accidents. You have
the luxury of arguing about the merits of radio calls vs. see and
avoid. You have the luxury of arguing about how to enter the traffic
pattern. You have the luxury of arguing about whether a towered
airport is safer than a nontowered airport. Unfortunately the pilots
at GTU no longer have that luxury. They have to figure out how to
have a safe airport amidst a growing group of citizens that would like
to shut down the airport.

Hobbes

The interesting thing about planes you don't see is that you don't
really know how many of them you haven't seen.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

...And the Diamond pilot was walking around????

I toured their factory last year...and took note of the
seating structure that they said would not collapse under the
occupant/pilot..

Kinda looks like they got it right, at least in this case...

Dave


On Tue, 11 May 2004 15:44:27 GMT, "Nasir"
wrote:

"Jeff Meininger" wrote in message


Folks,

What we have been talking about, and fearing happened this afternoon at the
Georgetown airport. I was taxiing to the run-up area near runway 18 when I
saw a Diamond Star on short final. Then all of a sudden I saw a yellow and
blue Extra sport plane approaching fast from short left base to final. He
was higher and slipping down from behind as they usually do. At first I
could not believe my eyes. It looked like the Extra sport plane was going to
go around, or over the Diamond and then they collided about 50 feet in the
air. Both planes spun around in the air and landed on the runway. The
Diamond spun in and landed on its nose then settled on its mains. The Extra
did a flat spin and hit hard on the runway. It happened so fast. I don't
recall hearing any radio calls prior to the collision. Anyway, we stopped in
the run-up area and I got out and ran over to the wreckage on the runway.
The pilot of the Diamond was walking around in a daze and the Extra pilot
was laying on his back on the runway. When I got to him, he was in pain and
complaining about his back. He kept saying that he never saw the other
plane. We calmed him down until emergency personnel came. EMS, Fire
Department, DPS and Police were there in a very short time. The news media
was also there as usual.