Pilots Say That the F-16-Cessna Crash Illustrates a Civil-Military Difference

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/07/can-the-right-stuff-become-the-wrong-stuff/399632/?single_page=true

by curtis • 11 years ago

181 84 11 years ago

An IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) pilot in VMC (Visual Meteorological Conditions) is still responsible for looking out of the airplane. Even if the pilot was "under the hood" (wearing a view limiting device), the safety pilot (the guy in the other chair) should have ensured separation from the Cessna.

My guess is this is going to end up in court.

zrail• 11 years ago

There was only one pilot in the F-16 (there are two seat trainer F-16s but AFAIK this was not one of them).

Also, you're basically making the same point as the article, except that (so the article conjectures) the military pilot didn't think he needed to look out for other aircraft because ATC was doing it for him.

ngoede5• 11 years ago

But also failed to respond appropriately to the ATC instructions that he turn immediately. It seems to me you cannot have it both ways regardless.

comrh• 11 years ago

Delusions of infallibility, arrogance, defensiveness, and blind deference to rank and regulation over common sense have all been shown, through the history of aviation tragedies, to be much more dangerous than all other factors.

Basically the most dangerous type of people across any situation.

jnbiche• 11 years ago

Basically the most dangerous type of people across any situation.

The amazing things is that most surgeons are like this -- the traits described are a near archetype for surgeons -- and yet outcomes for surgery are pretty damn good, and rapidly getting better for many types of surgery.

hackuser• 11 years ago

outcomes for surgery are pretty damn good

I would say that "good" is relative to what can be reasonably expected. If most surgeons fit that description, then we may not have an independent way to establish our expectations. That is, maybe we think it's "good" because we don't know better.

Hospital error is a leading cause of death in the U.S., though I don't know how much of that is due to surgery.

marcosdumay• 11 years ago

First, those are completely different standards of safety. If airplanes felt as often as surgery fails, people would not travel on them all the time. Even radical sports are much safer than surgery.

Also, pilots must sustain a good enough performance for hours, while surgeons must sustain a great performance for minutes. Those are very different requirements, and may quite well fit different personalities.

mcguire2• 11 years ago

The attempts to get surgical checklists[1] (a basic aviation tool) adopted see to suggest that it is very, very amazing that outcomes are so good.

[1] http://www.who.int/patientsafety/safesurgery/ss_checklist/en...

fnordfnordfnord2• 11 years ago

and yet outcomes for surgery are pretty damn good

I can't say that I agree, and a lot of people whose surgery didn't turn our well aren't around to complain.

Htsthbjig• 11 years ago

"the traits described are a near archetype for surgeons -- and yet outcomes for surgery are pretty damn good"

We did software for Hospitals here in Europe. They told us that confidence is one of the most important things for surgeons but arrogance is very bad. We had lots of data on our hands.

Also, while surgeons are well considered here in Europe, they are not the "Ferrari at the door" US types.

One of the big problems is that people can see the errors on others, but not in oneself. So our job was basically organizing things automatically to minimize errors, using lots of psychology, like making sure other professionals could see the errors of the first, recording things and so on.

We told them that it was for University kids to learn. While true, the main idea is controlling the surgeon by other surgeons. It works flawlessly.

"infallibility" could be good for making people confident and no doubt. At the same time is very bad if applied with authority if the surgeon is bad.

mnw21cam• 11 years ago

UK hospitals are now starting to train staff in the very same techniques used in cockpit resource management, by ex airline captains, for this very reason.

This training was all kicked off by a British Airways captain whose wife died on the operating table due to the surgeons ignoring the less senior people in the operating theatre when they raised the alarm and offered solutions. More power to him.

ngoede5• 11 years ago

This is apparently a big problem historically in countries that derive most of their commercial airline pilots from the military. It creates a culture in the cockpit where deference to rank is more important than the safety of the passengers.

leereeves• 11 years ago

There's a good reason to defer to rank and regulation over "common sense".

Our instincts and the lessons we learned in childhood are often wrong, especially in environments very different from our childhood, historical, and evolutionary environments, like aviation.

touristtam2• 11 years ago

That sounds like the perfect soldier, after the T-800.

mikeash2• 11 years ago

Does anyone know if fighters run their radar routinely, or if it's only done when required (e.g. in combat, or training for combat)? I've always wondered why modern fighters ever collide with other aircraft, since they have the hardware on board to track every aircraft in the sky within 50 miles in front of them.

thrill2• 11 years ago

Most aircraft with air-to-air radar, such as fighters, have the radar on and use it from takeoff to landing. That said, there are limitations on the number of targets it can track, and, without rereading the specifics of this accident, I think the F-16 had just made a descending turn a dozen seconds or so before the midair. That's not a lot of time to pick up and analyze new traffic as it comes into the radar's sight, especially when single seat and giving more concentration to the instrument approach procedure.

mikeash2• 11 years ago

Yes, I suppose the fact that they're only scanning a cone in front of the airplane is highly relevant if they're not flying in a straight line.

poof1313• 11 years ago

Use the radar all the time. Tough to do if in a turn practicing instruments and single seat. The pilot was probably heads out looking for the aircraft. Could have switched to a visual acquisition mode, but probably task saturated at that point. Also may have been futile if he was in a turn and the Cesna was climbing.

Midairs happen all the time, at least a few a year. Usually this is in dynamic situations (BFM, etc) or joins, especially at night. Usually between fighters and seldom with civilians.

neurotech15• 11 years ago

F-16s have radar but it may not be in the right mode (auto-acquisition/"dogfight" mode) during an ILS approach. According to an experienced F-16 pilot, ILS does work while the radar is searching for contacts in front of the aircraft.

Most fighter-to-fighter mid-air collisions occur during dogfighting practice, or during formation join-up. In both these situations, the radar might not show the other jet. Again the radar has to be in "dogfight" mode to have any chance of finding the other jet in close. The pilot would not be manually adjusting the radar scan position during a a visual join-up.

pm246012• 11 years ago

When I was training for my pilot license, my instructor was very clear about this point:

"Your responsibility is to NOT get into an accident. It doesn't matter what the air traffic controller said, what I told you to do, or what the other guy did. If you collide with another plane - IT IS YOUR FAULT. You are the PIC."

This absolute responsibility is well placed when even a "fender bender" is death for all.

It sounds like the military pilot didn't get taught that concept.

tacticus• 11 years ago

Very first time i went up as an air cadet we all received this lecture.

And it is entirely the case.

ngoede5• 11 years ago

It seems terribly unfair that in this situation the person behaving recklessly had the best tools for surviving after the crash happened. Just how things go I guess.

Retric2• 11 years ago

This is actually part of why the United States Air Force skips over a lot of 'important' general aviation training. The Air Force goal is to quickly train people for very specific and demanding roles and the tools to be say a great glider pilot are considered relatively unimportant.

Unfortunately, AF pilots often confuse the ability to excel in specific very demanding roles as far more general aviation experience.

peckrob4• 11 years ago

Same here. My instructor was very clear that I, as the PIC, was responsible for maintaining clearance from other airplanes at all times regardless of what ATC says. Even if I am operating in controlled airspace, ultimately, the authority over what happens to me and my airplane is my responsibility alone.

While traffic callouts are nice to have and I really appreciate ATC giving me heads up when I'm flying, I still spend the majority of my flying time looking out the windows for other airplanes. Especially before making any turn or other maneuver where I might have limited view, always dip the wings to check the area first.

Unfortunately, I know some pilots who fly as if they've never seen a radio. Used to do a lot of flying out of a semi-uncontrolled field (it's untowered, but right under the 2,000ft shelf of a nearby class C). I would be doing pattern work, turning base and some yahoo would do a straight-in without a single call on the radio. If I hadn't seen him it and turned early it might have ended badly.

tw04• 11 years ago

So... just a thought as a non-pilot. It's 2015 - we have collision camera's on cars. Given you need to be looking literally every direction to see if something is going to hit you, why aren't planes equipped with similar technology. I feel like at cruising altitude, there aren't really enough false-positives out there that the system would be unusable.

Not necessarily expecting you personally to know. But I feel like the incremental cost to the price of a plane should make this a no-brainer. Did I just come up with a ycombinator 2016 idea?

agumonkey• 11 years ago

So in case of contradictory information, the pilot always has the final word, provided he takes the safest path possible ? Aren't there times where his judgement might be clouded or controllers better informed ?

Infernal• 11 years ago

I was in a similar situation once. Untowered field that lay just outside of Class C airspace, though the pattern passed under it.

One afternoon I was departing east, climbing and preparing to turn crosswind at 1000 AGL. I had announced my departure like usual, but otherwise the channel was quiet. I was maybe 750 AGL when I noticed a tiny sparkle directly in front of me (fortuitously, the sun was at my back). After observing it for a couple of moments and realizing that it didn't appear to be moving relative to my position, I re-announced my departure and angled to the right (SOP in head-on convergence is everyone turn right, immediately). Sure enough, about 20 seconds later the inbound aircraft zipped past on my left. Hard to estimate distance in the air, but way less than a mile and equal altitude. Fucker never said a word, just landed straight in, with the wind, completely ignoring the pattern. Blows my mind to this day.

snom320• 11 years ago

In VMC, yes. If you're in IMC in certain air spaces, it is the ATCs responsibility to maintain separation, not yours (because you might not have the information needed to avoid a collision, but the ATC will).

If course, you're still responsible for following instructions, but you can't necessarily blame an IMC mid-air on the pilots.

sandworm101• 11 years ago

IFR training in a one-man airframe? That's very odd in the civilian world. One-man planes are rare enough, but a one-man plane with full instrumentation would be something special. And to then use it for training?

I suspect this crash is the result of a gap in FAA regulations. I would suggest that no pilot should be doing IFR training alone while around aircraft not flying IFR. But I can see why the rule doesn't exist: it is an extraordinarily rare situation that, probably, nobody thought needed covering.

This is one of the reasons that American's and Brits go to Goose Bay for low-level training. Canada has more empty sky than either of them combined.

dbenj• 11 years ago

It was an F16 (e.g. military, not civilian).

And if the pilot is simulating instrument conditions, there is a rule: FAR 91.109 "No person may operate a civil aircraft in simulated instrument flight unless - The other control seat is occupied by a safety pilot who possesses at least a private pilot certificate with category and class ratings appropriate to the aircraft being flown".

If not simulating IMC, it's the pilot's responsibility to see and avoid per 91.113(b)

ngoede5• 11 years ago

What constitutes a "civil aircraft" in this situation?

neurotech15• 11 years ago

They do not fly simulated IMC ("under the hood") in F-16s. By the time the pilot gets anywhere near a F-16, they have already trained for IMC in multiple trainer aircraft.

FAR 91 doesn't apply to military aircraft, although military rules require they maintain a visual scan outside the aircraft.

sokoloff• 11 years ago

The F-16 was on a training mission. It was also flying under IFR. That doesn't necessarily mean that the pilot was doing what we think of as "IFR training" (view limiting devices, etc).

It's perfectly normal for a training, proficiency, or currency flight to be operated under IFR, even single pilot.

throwaway64908• 11 years ago

The article is 100% correct about civilian (FAA) air regs - in fact the rules mentioned are pretty basic to any civil IFR pilot.

Although it's not surprising that military pilots would not be sharp on FAA regs, it does raise the question, "so how does civil and military aviation share the same airspace?"

From accidents seen around the world, you can't safely mix them. Civil pilots are "solely responsible" and military pilots are "flying under orders" and "flying a mission", which is why they defer to controllers.

mcguire2• 11 years ago

I don't want to address the difference between civilian and military pilots, since I think the author has done a fine job of that.

But I would like to point out that see-and-avoid doesn't really work in general, and particularly not in the case of two small aircraft with wildly different performance characteristics. I suspect that, even if the F-16 was on a practice instrument approach, the bottom of its performance envelope is significantly higher than the top of the Cessna 150's. (According to the 'pedia, maximum speed is 109kt and Vne is 140kt.)

See-and-avoid has been the first and more-or-less primary anti-collision system in aviation use, but if you've ever tried to cross a highway with high-speed oncoming traffic, you've probably already learned that there are limits to the human visual system. It's just not built to do that sort of thing. No doubt keeping your head outside the cockpit does prevent a lot of crashes, but expecting it to have prevented any crash, much less this one, is too much of a reach.

Keep in mind that most animal's visual systems are pretty good at picking up movement, but one of the signs that you are on a collision course with another vehicle is that it isn't moving in you visual field.

From [1]: "[The University of Washington’s Autonomous Flight System Lab] came up with a novel way to [modeled the UAS collision risk], reasoning that the known behavior (and random collisions) of gas molecules could serve as a way to predict collision probabilities between VFR aircraft, including UAS. (PDF)[3] To test the hypothesis, they compared the gas-molecule data to actual midair collision data and found a remarkably good fit. This allows two conclusions: manned airplanes under VFR run into each other at about the same random rate as gas molecules do and that’s pretty strong statistical evidence that see and avoid doesn’t work. (Because of a variance between the gas data and actual midairs, the paper concluded that see and avoid might work 14 percent of the time, but a bit better during the past few years. Possibly for a reason.)"

By the way, [1] is an entertaining post with some information, while [2] is a paper from 'stralia called, "Limitations of the See-and-Avoid Principle".

[1] http://www.avweb.com/blogs/insider/Why-See-and-Avoid-Doesnt-...

[2] http://www.skybrary.aero/bookshelf/books/259.pdf

[3] https://www.aa.washington.edu/research/afsl/publications/lum...

Ps. Ok, I do want to say something about the difference between military and civilian pilots. Back in 2004, six soldiers and a general died when a Blackhawk hit a television transmission tower guy wire while in heavy fog.[4] The tower was 1800 feet tall; apparently the helicopter hit the wire about half way up. It wasn't a training mission; the helicopter was "headed to Red River to check maintenance on equipment". The first question from me, the most holster-sniffing of non-pilots, was, "What was he doing flying below 1000 feet in heavy fog?"

[4] http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Seven-soldie...

fnordfnordfnord2• 11 years ago

But I would like to point out that see-and-avoid doesn't really work in general, and particularly not in the case of two small aircraft with wildly different performance characteristics.

This^. I was right-seat in a King Air and heard Center call traffic for us at 1/4 mile, looked once, nothing, turned head in case I might have lost my bearing, looked again and there it was. I felt I could almost read the numbers and ID on the aircraft, that's an exaggeration, but it was close. If there hadn't also been some altitude separation, we could've been in a lot worse shape because we were under the other A/C's nose. Neither myself nor the pilot could see it before it was already very close, and it closed too fast for us to do much because we didn't have much energy (climbing spiral with skydivers on board).

blantonl• 11 years ago

One interesting Civil-Military difference is that military aircraft and civilain aircraft operate on two completely different sets of communications channels yet the air traffic controllers talk to both military and civilain aircraft at the same time.

Military aircraft typically trasmit to air traffic controllers in a frequency range between 225-380 MHz, while civilan aircraft transmit to air traffic controllers in a frequency range between 118-136 MHz.

The air traffic controllers simulcast their transmissions betweeen both frequency bands to make sure their instructions reach both military and civilan pilots, however the transmissions back to the controllers cannnot be heard between civilan and military pilots.

This is a prime example of the "Civil-Military" difference outlined in the article.

* Note: Most Military pilots have the ability to transmit on both VHF (118-136 MHz) and UHF (225-380 MHz) however it is up to pilots discretion.

repiret• 11 years ago

Controllers don't always simulcast on the military and civilian frequencies. Sometimes they do, because its convenient, just like they sometimes simulcast on Ground and Tower or on Ground and Clearance, but often they only transmit on the frequency used by the people they're talking to.

pdonis• 11 years ago

One question that I don't see discussed in the article, or in any of the previous ones it links to: why didn't the air traffic controller tell the F-16 to turn right? From the geometry as described, a right turn would seem to be better for avoidance. (The F-16 was northeast of the Cessna and heading west-southwest; the Cessna was heading east-southeast.)

lujim• 11 years ago

Although this is armchair quarterbacking, having the F-16 break off the approach to climb and maintain a new altitude would have been nice. Not sure if there was traffic above him though. Altitude separation is always more comfortable than a vector away from traffic at or near your altitude.

_ea1k• 11 years ago

This part baffles me as well. The Cessna was at 1200 feet indicated to begin with. AFAIK, Mode C has an error of +- 200 feet.

That doesn't sound like adequate vertical separation to me. Why not ask for a 500 foot climb instead of giving a vector?

frozenport• 11 years ago

I find it crazy that one small aircraft could collide with another small aircraft, with such a vast amount of space to avoid each other. How is a collision possible? What am I missing?

em3rgent0rdr• 11 years ago

very rare event. But rare events happen.

SapphireSun2• 11 years ago

When I was going through flight training, I thought about this a lot. I think the reason is that the places airplanes go is not random. If airplanes just went to random places in the sky at random altitudes, then indeed accidents would be rare, but everyone heads towards airports, which have particular traffic pattern altitudes for instance. I don't know the specifics of this situation, but perhaps the military pilot wanted to practice IFR near the ground and there also happened to be a VFR corridor passing through there. These non-random intents of pilots mean that airplanes get a lot closer together than you would otherwise think.

hudibras• 11 years ago

I think the reason is that the places airplanes go is not random.

This is how two planes collided 37,000 feet above the Amazon rain forest.

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2009/01/air_crash200901

david-given• 11 years ago

There's a known problem in the sailing world where people will set their autopilots to GPS coordinates from waypoints published in sailing magazines, and then collide with another vessel in the middle of deep ocean with no landmarks around.

Animats• 11 years ago

Trying to read the actual NTSB report, but the NTSB site is completely down. "500 Internal Server Error" (not as a HTTP status, as a text web page) for their home page.

TallGuyShort• 11 years ago

I wonder if the people who do the post-mortems on IT outages there are considered "crash investigators".

mmaunder• 11 years ago

A couple of comments about the article. Firstly, if you're a pilot or into aviation, definitely read Fate is the Hunter. It's awesome. You'll need to get the paper version as it's not available for an ebook AFAIK.

A few folks in the article suggest 'slamming' the plane into a turn when ATC uses 'immediately'. That's really not a great idea in a variety of situations. Remember: aviate, navigate, communicate. AOPA has a great article this week on a situation where ATC screwed up and cleared a pilot for landing with another plane on final. He turned onto a tight base ready for short final and ATC told him to turn quickly. He executed a 60 degree bank/climb at 300 ft AGL and stall/spun the plane and put a 4 foot smoking hole in the ground. http://www.aopa.org/AOPA-Live.aspx?watch={384817B3-70C4-4147...

I'd add that I've been in the pattern at small airports around Colorado Springs with Air Academy pilots (and flown through the MOA's in the area) and they've always been polite and helpful. Although it sounds like the culture issue described comes up with military pilots on IFR plans around VFR civilians.

bootload2• 11 years ago

"if you're a pilot or into aviation, definitely read Fate is the Hunter."

Second that, "Fate is the Hunter" [0] by Ernest Gann [1] describes the precarious life of a US career airline pilot (including descriptions of flying DC2's, DC3's & DC4's, flight seniority and luck) between the 30's to the 50's. The book is dedicated to a hundred or so commercial pilots not as fortunate as EKG.

    "Although we can never be absolutely certain, 
     we now believe the Eastern Airline crash at 
     Bainbridge was caused by unporting. Do you 
     know what that is?"

     I confessed that I had never heard of it.

     [Unporting: could be caused by a missing 
     elevator hinge bolt, like that missing on 
     Gann's DC-4, and cause an uncontrollable 
     nose-dive, if the plane were flown at certain 
     speeds and center of gravity loadings.]

     "Did you slow down when you first noticed 
      the vibration? You did not because you had 
      no fear of it. But if you had been the 
      nervous type, if you slowed down, the center 
      of gravity would have changed. That would have 
      been quite enough to complete the process of 
      unporting which had partially begun."

The title of the book is derived from the fickle nature of flight and how cumulative mistakes become catastrophic depending on luck and fear associated with flying. [2]

One interesting chapter I do remember is Ch16, "A Pretender" where an untrained pilot takes command of an aircraft only to be found out by very poor co-ordination. Gann describes how nobody checked his credentials prior to employment of commercial flying.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fate_Is_the_Hunter

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_K._Gann

[2] http://rwebs.net/avhistory/fate.htm

bootload2• 11 years ago

another good read, "The Shepherd" (Forsyth novella, '75) -- De Havilland Vampire pilot faces electrical problems flying from RAF Celle to RAF Lakenheath ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shepherd

poof1313• 11 years ago

I don’t think this article is fair and borders on click bait, with a salacious headline and handpicked responses.

1. All all the facts are NOT in, yet judgment has been reached and mudslingers are throwing.

2. By the NTSB preliminary report, the entire time from the first pilot warning (1100:18) to midair (1100:52) was 34 seconds. Barely half a minute for life and death decisions to be made. All of which fell on ATC and the F-16 pilot with the civilian not in radio contact.

3. ATC made the traffic call. 8 seconds later ATC gives the ‘turn south’ call. The F-16 pilot asks ‘confirm 2 miles’. 8 seconds later ATC says ‘if traffic not in sight, turn immediately 180.’ The F-16 pilot complies and begins his turn south. 18 seconds later they collide.

4. From 2 miles to collisions in 34 seconds coincides with just under 4 miles a minute closure or 240kts. Cesna at 60 and F-16 at 180 seems reasonable.

Could the F-16 driver have overbanked and started his turn quicker by a few seconds? Maybe, but there was only 16 seconds and the pilot collided in a turn, so if he’d delayed a few more seconds the collision would have been a miss.

Also, how responsible is a civilian pilot for climbing through an instrument approach near a military airfield without radio contact?

It’s a tragedy. Military aviation could probably ditch Tacan approaches, but they are good training. Perhaps any that are close to civilian fields need to be given the axe.

Yet to blame this only on the military pilot and military pilots in general is a complete disgrace. An accident is like swiss cheese, with multiple holes. Errors with people, processes, and things all help cause it.

If only one thing would have changed (if the turn started earlier or later, if ATC picked up the radar hit earlier, if the F-16 pilot got a visual quicker, if the F-16 had a radar lock, if the Cesna was in radio contact, if the Cesna stayed below and didn’t climb through an instrument approach) the crash wouldn’t have happened.

Aviation is dangerous, especially if you aren’t in a bus. Even a bus driver is mildly dangerous.[1] General Aviation and Fighter Aviation are especially dangerous. While I’m all for lessons learned, this salacious, click-bait, profiteering-off-a-tragedy, poised-as-a-question trash doesn’t help.

[1] http://qz.com/410585/garbage-collectors-are-more-likely-to-d...

cma• 11 years ago

All of this seems like a rehash of the last comment the article quoted.

mikegreen• 11 years ago

"Also, how responsible is a civilian pilot for climbing through an instrument approach near a military airfield without radio contact?"

Other than responsible for not seeing a fast moving jet rear-end him, not very responsible. Even if he was under radio control and his head on a swivel, it would have have been near impossible to see the jet coming from behind and left at that speed. He wasn't "near a military airfield" - he had taken off from a general aviation airport just north of Charleston's International airport (CHS), also shared with military, however FAA ATC and rules prevail in this airspace. There is no "military airfield" difference around CHS. The F-16 was on a practice approach to CHS, just as anyone could do a practice approach to CHS by requesting to do so from ATC. One major contributing issue to this was the controller descending the F-16 to such a low altitude so far out (1600' at 34 miles out) [1]. This is well below any slide glope and frankly, as a pilot who flies IFR and no-radio-VFR, I would never expect to see a jet on an approach that low even 15 miles out.

The incident did not occur in the military operation areas (MOA) north of CHS.

[1] http://www.ntsb.gov/_layouts/ntsb.aviation/brief.aspx?ev_id=...

poof1313• 11 years ago

My main point is that there are likely multiple factors and a headline titled “Can the ‘Right Stuff’ Become the Wrong Stuff?” with speculation and hand picked comments doesn’t help the investigation or preventing accidents in the future. It does drive traffic and revenue for James Fallows and the Atlantic though.

If you fly GA, I’d recommend you know where nearby airports are (and thirty miles isn’t that far for jets), where instrument approaches are, where MOAs are, where low level routes are, etc. I’d also recommend using flight following. You can say that these things aren’t your responsibility, but I don’t think that’s a good attitude.

Also, I’m not sure how you interpret that the Cesna was rear ended. Reading the NTSB report it sounds like the Cesna was heading southeast (135) and climbing and the F-16 was heading west (265) and turning south (180). Seems closer to head-on or perpendicular with the Cesna climbing into the F-16’s altitude and the F-16 in a belly up turn with no visibility.

Regarding the Tacan, I don’t see any mention that the F-16 was below altitude or off course. So just because you wouldn’t expect a plane there, doesn’t mean that one won’t be there. Again, maybe this is a bad Tacan with nearby civilian airfields and should be axed, but it doesn’t seem any rules were broken.

We don’t know the results of the investigation, yet all the blame is being put on the F-16 driver. It sounds like small failures from all involved resulted in a tragic outcome. There may be lessons learned from this incident that can help prevent another in the future, but placing blame without the facts and pointing fingers in the media isn’t how we figure them out.

icambron• 11 years ago

Can someone more familiar with this stuff tell me why the air traffic controller had the F-16 turn left, so that its path would cross that of the Cessna's? Seems backwards.

rockdoe• 11 years ago

Check the previous articles that are linked in the header, it's explained at length!

berkut2• 11 years ago

Is it really the F-16's pilot's responsibility to ensure separation when under ATC control?

Doesn't the US have MARSA (Military Accepts Responsibility for Separation of Aircraft) rules that military flights can occasionally use, and which point they are then fully responsible, but otherwise I thought they'd still have to generally follow ATC directions.

ubernostrum2• 11 years ago

Is it really the F-16's pilot's responsibility to ensure separation when under ATC control?

Yes:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9965658

berkut2• 11 years ago

That post doesn't really prove anything: obviously, if you can see you're heading towards another aircraft and it's likely you'll collide, you'll take evasive action irrespective of ATC control.

I was talking more about deciding which flight level to use and general legal responsibility.

Unless the F-16 pilot turned on his radar or could see other aircraft, how does he know exactly what other aircraft there are. Admittedly, ATC only generally knows squarked aircraft, but this is generally a good picture of what's happening, and will probably be more complete a picture than what the F-16 has access to under non-military conditions (AWACS, datalink, etc).

chinpokomon• 11 years ago

Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect.

? Captain A. G. Lamplugh

cmurf• 11 years ago

Let's pretend the perspective is true, that ATC has full responsibility for separation when the pilot is doing instrument training in visual conditions under radar contact.

Why delay doing exactly what you're told to do, twice?

1. Turn left if you don't have that traffic in sight, does not mean ask questions to confirm the distance, it means turn left if you don't have that traffic in sight. This delay is a minimum of 8 seconds difference in whether this accident happens.

2. Turn left immediately means do it now, not beginning to turn over 18 seconds... I've put a Cessna in a 60˚ 2G bank inside of 5 seconds many times (it is an unusual attitude, done for training purposes), and this guy is in a fighter jet. He can do better than that.

From this transcript, it's a much easier case proving negligence on the part of the F-16 pilot, than defending it. About the best defense the F-16 pilot I can come up with is that he probably had no chance to see and avoid because of the nose cone of the F-16 obstructing the view of the slightly lower Cessna; and the whole see and avoid principle is probably statistically bullcrap, and all flights should be under positive control. But unfortunately that's not the system we have, and I don't understand the cause for these two delays and the seemingly slow turn when the word "immediately" was used by ATC, which has a very explicit, formal meaning in ICAO terms which is when instant action is required by a pilot.

touristtam2• 11 years ago

Reminds me of the Cavales cable car disaster. (http://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/04/world/20-die-in-italy-as-u...)

Pilots Say That the F-16-Cessna Crash Illustrates a Civil-Military Difference

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