This weekend a small airplane and a tourist helicopter collided in uncontrolled airspace over the Hudson River, killing all aboard both aircraft.
As a boater, I’m familiar with the rules of the road for water navigation, which specify which vessel must give way in various situations which may arise on the two dimensional water surface. A relatively few rules cover most situations.
On the other hand, I would imagine that the number of potential ways aircraft may interact in the three dimensional airspace is rather greater than on the water.
So, if you are piloting an aircraft in the vicinity of others, what are the general rules of the road governing how to avoid collisions?
This regulation can get a bit grey in certain scenarios, but overall, the “see and avoid” is paramount. But if the eyewitness accounts of the Hudson accident are accurate, it would seem the aircraft was overtaking the helo, and should have stayed clear.
I don’t know the altitude that it happened at but it’s likely they were flying below 3000 feet AGL (Above Ground Level) if they were sight seeing. This means they were not constricted by direction of flight to maintain a specific flight level so both aircraft were free to wander at will. Also, below the level of the buildings it would be easy to miss seeing another aircraft in the visual ground clutter.
I was doing circuit training at a local small airfield. I was flying solo in the circuit, practising my crosswind landings when I heard a helicopter on the radio announce his intention to cross the airfield on his way west to another small airfield.
This was not unusual and as long as he followed the rules, cross at joining height 2000ft, there wouldn’t be a problem. Except this idiot didn’t bother to find out the circuit altitude at this airfield, 1300ft, and crossed at 1000ft thinking he would be well below the three aircraft in the circuit.
So he crossess the threshold of the active runway, he claimed he thought we were using the other runway at right angles to the wind, just as I’m turning onto finals. He flashes past my nose. My instructor gets on the radio and tells me to land and pick him up and then proceeds to yell at the helicopter idiot.
Back at the flying club everyone is asking if I’m ok after my near miss. I was fine, it happened so fast I had just enough time to think, Helicopter! and then carried on with the landing. The pilot of the helicopter appears at the door, he landed next to the club so he could apologise. I accepted his apology as did my instructor, who handed him a blank incident report form to fill out. He was reluctant to do it but my instructor pointed out that he was going to submit one and without both forms the SACAA would have to investigate.
If the offedning pilot had been paying attention to the radio traffic and followed the basic rules he would not have come close to me.
Latest reports have the collision at 1100’, which is above the top of the VFR corridor (1000’) and in CL-B airspace. The Saratoga was being controlled by Teterboro Tower and had just been handed off to Newark. No word on if the helicopter was talking with anyone. I’ve been told by a commercial pilot who goes there frequently that it’s preferable to do that, get clearance and fly over the corridor instead of through it, both to get radar service and to avoid “canyon turbulence” from the buildings. You still won’t have anywhere safe to land in an emergency, but the view is better too.
There are special rules covering the Hudson River VFR corridor, including use of a CTAF designated for it, that all lights be used, and that all aircraft stay to the right of the river. Helicopters are normally expected to stay on helicopter routes at 500’.
It appears the Saratoga pilot was where he should have been but the helicopter might not have been. Regardless, if he came up from behind it was his responsibility to see and avoid.
Have you seen anywhere what speed the Piper was traveling? I know if I’m going over 100 knots in an urban area, with lots of tall buildings, I rapidly lose my ability to pick out moving traffic like helicopters, other planes, etc.
I used to love flying VFR around New York and Chicago. Haven’t been to New York in 15 years, so I know things have changed.
But I don’t trust myself to do it anymore because I’ve had a couple of near misses where there was absolutely no way I would have had enough time to see the other plane, even if I was throttled back to 90 knots or so. I just couldn’t pick the moving target out of the background. Now I only do it IFR.
I haven’t plunged into the details, but a lot of pilots - especially low time pilots - aren’t comfortable with flying slow. They’ve had it drilled into their heads that slow is bad, which as a general rule keeps you out of trouble as long as you’re flying between long asphalt strips over flat country.
But I think that was the reason that Cory Lidle hit the building in Manhattan a few years back, and why so many people get killed in canyons in the backcountry. They speed up to stay well above a stall, and then don’t realize how much ground they’re covering, and how big their turning radius has become. Next thing…blammo. Either into a building, like Lidle, or into the side of a mountain.
A Saratoga is a big bird. 300HP under the hood, if I remember correctly. With the gear up and no flaps I would think it would be pretty hard to stay below 100-120 knots or so. And for me, anyway, that’s way too fast in an urban area.
But if he was flying slow, he’d have had trouble seeing over the nose.
Hopefully the Piper wreckage (I’ve seen it variously called a PA-32, Saratoga, and Lance) will show the flap and throttle positions, at least. With any luck, a GPS trace too.
I mentioned this above. almost hit a tower once while doing photographic work along a river. I brought a spotter with me to watch for traffic and then proceeded to draw her attention away by talking about what I was photographing. Even looking straight at the tower I could hardly see the red marker light on it (towers under 500 feet don’t need strobes).
I usually fly by Chicago going to Oshkosh every year and I’m very leery of planes coming up from the many airports along the shoreline. Strobes on the bottom of planes are not visible as they climb out.
Interesting. The maritime Rules for the Prevention of Collisions at Sea are really quite similar. Although there are special rules for sailing vessels, vessels restricted in their ability to maneuver, traffic lanes, narrow channels, etc., the basic rules for power vessels are the pretty much the same.
Rule 13: . . . any vessel overtaking any other shall keep out of the way of the vessel being overtaken.
Rule 14: When two power driven vessels are meeting on reciprocal or nearly reciprocal courses so as to involve risk of collision each shall alter her course to starboard so that each shall pass on the port side of the other. . . .
Rule 15: When two power driven vessels are crossing so as to involve risk of collision, the vessel which has the other on her own starboard side shall keep out of the way and shall, if the circumstances of the case admit, avoid crossing ahead of the other vessel.
Nothing to do with the Hudson River incident, and I suspect that you were flying in the UK. But I’d like to comment on the “active runway” terminology.
In the U.S., the term “active runway” is misleading. At a tower-controlled airport, air traffic control (ATC) designates which runways are active at a given time, and will only permit operations on those runways. But most airports in the U.S. are non-towered.
At non-towered fields the rule is “see and avoid”, as with other VFR operations. Pilots often use radios to communicate with one another to augment see & avoid, but it’s not mandatory. While doing so, they often use the term “active runway”, but this is incorrect. The wind may be favoring a certain runway, but there’s no requirement to use it. If he wanted to, a pilot could land downwind, opposite the direction most pilots would choose. As long as it doesn’t cause a traffic conflict, there’s nothing illegal about this practice.
Agreed. I did some training in a Cherokee 6 a few years back (the straight-leg precursor to the Saratoga) and I thought the visibility was terrible in slow flight.
Yet another reason for me to stick to big, fat-winged taildraggers.