Ibra wrote:
You may contact the pilot to understand more but you may not get the answer you wish, maybe he saw you but you did not see him?
He was questioned. As indicated, he was unaware that I was there, he didn’t see me at all. He responded to calls from the Flugleiter – he was at least monitoring the frequency – and asked whether he had understood what he’d done. He was oblivious to me, thought I was coming in on the other runway. His thought processes were: I’ve departed an airfield 5km to the south of here on a westerly runway, this airfield will also be using the westerly runway. Even though I called downwind, base and final 06, it still didn’t register…..
Steve6443 wrote:
I can understand that but at what point do you allow other pilots to fly through a live final with traffic established? Or is it considered acceptable for me to fly as per below?
Not possible in controlled airspace and not acceptable outside controlled airspace
You may contact the pilot to understand more but you may not get the answer you wish, maybe he saw you but you did not see him?
Reckless but high unlikely you can come up with argument that what he did was NOT legal
Last time I spoke to two pilots who cut in front of me on final I got bollocking from two oldies who think they were Top Gun Mavericks in a twin (they say they saw me, decided to cut in front and I should not be very scared, they looked like pros on top of their game except I was dispointed they landed fast and way longer than a B747 
)
Unlike you these were local pilots, we got to see each other at fuel pump & taxi hold to return favours, 20min wait with a smile
Malibuflyer wrote:
The whole question is what it takes to prove such behavior in a legal sense. Taking your picture as example:
- Your flight track in red indicates that no significant evasive action has been taken. It is a straight line in the final. If – as per your earlier post – the Flugleiter would have testified you taking evasive action there will be significant questions on how he could see this when the evasive action was so small, that it can’t be seen on the flight track.
- The whole “evasive action” thing is quite questionable. If the flight tracks on the picture are accurate it looks like the blue plane was overtaking the red plane from behind. There is no reasonable evasive action from the red plane as at the time the red can possibly see the blue it has already passed. Might be that the red plane did some actions in shock but very unlikely did such actions contribute to the avoidance of an accident.
You’re thinking two dimensionally, assuming avoidance only occurs left or right….. This is the same issue that most people have when criticising the MRX* that I was using in those days for traffic avoidance. Please bear in mind that when I spotted the aircraft it was below my left wing root, just the spinner and cowling in view, climbing, towards me, overtaking, maybe 10 feet lower. If I had turned left, I was concerned that my left wing tip could have hit his horizontal stabiliser; had I turned right or applied full power and gone around, I would have lost sight of him and I didn’t know what he was doing except that he was overtaking and climbing.
The only credible option of avoiding a MAC was to keep the other aircraft in sight and maintaining separation – that was achieved by closing the throttle, raising the nose to stop the descent, slow the aircraft, keeping the other aircraft in sight. This action was visible on the tracks of this one flight and was marked different than any other flight. How?
The Cirrus records the data of each flight, depending on the avionics fitted more or fewer parameters are recorded. By taking 20 or so other tracks of approaches into EDLH 06 recorded from my aircraft, it was relatively easy to prove that action was taken even if I can’t prove that it was necessary – at the point I spotted the other aircraft, my MP dropped as I closed the throttle and then rapidly increased a few seconds later as I tried to regain airspeed. Ground speed also dropped but that could also be a gust of wind, right? After all, on a calm day, with no significant wind a 12 knot loss of speed can always happen….
FYI The red line is the actual track taken from my onboard recordings, the blue line is a line I added to show it’s course and shouldn’t be literally taken as the course it flew, it indicates where it was, where it went.
Bearing in mind he is approximately 400 ft AGL there and flying through an active final, isn’t that sufficient to warrant a charge of reckless flying, let alone ignoring SERA 5005f?
*I should note that it was only due to the MRX which was going absolutely berserk, warning me about the intruder that I was actually looking for the traffic; typically I would have been focussed on final and not looking down left; it was also the reason that the controller was looking towards 06 because I had asked him whether there was anyone on the field with a transponder on, I thought maybe my MRX was receiving a signal from an aircraft on the ground. He looked across the field, saw nothing, told me so and was looking back towards 06 approach when he heard me make my exclamation…..
It is not about what is considered acceptable – it is without any doubt that it is not acceptable to cross the final track of a landing aircraft.
The whole question is what it takes to prove such behavior in a legal sense. Taking your picture as example:
- Your flight track in red indicates that no significant evasive action has been taken. It is a straight line in the final. If – as per your earlier post – the Flugleiter would have testified you taking evasive action there will be significant questions on how he could see this when the evasive action was so small, that it can’t be seen on the flight track.
- The whole “evasive action” thing is quite questionable. If the flight tracks on the picture are accurate it looks like the blue plane was overtaking the red plane from behind. There is no reasonable evasive action from the red plane as at the time the red can possibly see the blue it has already passed. Might be that the red plane did some actions in shock but very unlikely did such actions contribute to the avoidance of an accident.
- Finally the blue flight track looks implausible! It is a too straight line to be realistic as a real flight track for a small airplane even under autopilot. So it is somehow synthetically generated. One needs a lot of different witnesses on different locations to only come close to such a rendition. The pilot of the red plane can not contribute much to that because the majority of this pretended blue flightpath has happened behind him. An observer at the field can’t contribute much either because especially at this angle he only sees a point in the sky (at best!) that barely moves.
All of these points are quite irrelevant if it is about learning what (not) to do while flying. It is, however, absolutely key if it’s about administrative or even criminal actions against a pilot.
In German courts we have the notion of “Knallzeugen” (literally translated: Bang-witnesses). Those are people that only became aware of an accident when they heard the noise. They believe, however, that they can testify how the accident happened because they created a so strong mental image that from their POV it became reality.
Again, please do not understand my points as questioning what you have experienced! It’s just about illustrating what it would take to prove that in a way that a constitutional state can base a legal action on it.
Malibuflyer wrote:
The Flugleiter can only testify that you actually took some action – deviating from the normal approach flight path – he can by no means testify that such actions were required.
I can understand that but at what point do you allow other pilots to fly through a live final with traffic established? Or is it considered acceptable for me to fly as per below? This was a document used to show the respective flight paths, my flight path is in red, where the aircraft logo is my position when I spotted the conflicting traffic climbing from below, the blue track is the course of the other aircraft….
It is merely a small note at the bottom of the VAC of EDLH. Therefore, it only applies to departures/arrivals at EDLH, since any other aircraft (transiting the area) would have no way of knowing about this (they won’t read the VAC of EDLH if not intending to land or depart there).
So you mean I can basically ignore all VAC instructions, cut my way through an active final and say “I’m just transiting the area, the restrictions on the VAC don’t apply to me”? Must try that one day…..although I fear SERA 5005f still applies:- over built up area, the minimum altitude is 1000 feet over the highest obstacle within 600m. The near miss happened on final, which for Hamm 06 means I’ll turn at 1000 MSL or 800 feet AGL, I was around 400ft AGL when I noted the danger as he overtook me from below, climbing through my course….
That was what made me so concerned – in the Cirrus, in case of a MAC, I have the chute as a final “get out of jail free” card. At less than 400 feet AGL, the chute is unlikely to provide any real assistance, especially if you think of the surprise, delay to react and pull…. If pilots can blindly fly directly through an active approach and endanger others yet face no consequences because they know the guy investigating, perhaps due to a dodgy handshake, it’s still not acceptable.
The other pilot involved frequently flew in the area, was based in Kamen (5km away) and was an instructor, had landed in EDLH previously himself, he was local and knew the rules.
Steve6443 wrote:
Concerning distances – the fact that I had to take avoiding action and the Flugleiter in his report himself said he’d never seen planes as close as we were, even though he’d carried out formation flying;
Every judge will tell you that it is simply impossible to actually “see” from the ground how close aircrafts are together. For distances which are further than about 50m, human seeing is a 2D thing. It is absolutely clear that the Flugleiter believes he has seen that – also obviously influenced by what he heard on the radio, etc. – but it is physically impossible that he has really seen how close it was – he could never tell if the other plane has not really been couple of 100m in front or behind you, because the only indication for distance along line of sight he has is relative size that is extremely unreliable as proxy.
Steve6443 wrote:
the fact that I had to take avoiding action
The Flugleiter can only testify that you actually took some action – deviating from the normal approach flight path – he can by no means testify that such actions were required.
If it is about learning for the future this is perfectly fine – but a criminal or administrative charge has much higher bars (rightfully so) on actually proving a transgression. And visual observation from the ground does not pass this bar.
In Germany there is actually legal precedence for this: In the initial discussions/trials around the traffic pattern in Bonn it has become quite clear that visual observation from the ground doesn’t tell you where a plane actually is. That is the reason why Bonn invested significantly (some say 20k) into a binocular with laser distance measurement – and still the cases are shaky …
It is merely a small note at the bottom of the VAC of EDLH. Therefore, it only applies to departures/arrivals at EDLH, since any other aircraft (transiting the area) would have no way of knowing about this (they won’t read the VAC of EDLH if not intending to land or depart there).
Steve6443 wrote:
The second charge should have been that he was wilfully ignoring the AIP which clearly states flights over the city are not to be carried out below 2000ft MSL. If you look at the location of EDLH, you will see that for him to be flying directly through the final of 06 as he was, he was in fact flying over the middle of the city (EDLH being one of the few airfields in the middle of a city and not on the outskirts) thus in breach of the AIP.
Was that a recommendation or a regulation? Unless there was an R-area up to 2000 ft, I don’t see how it could be anything but a recommendation. There are lots and lots of cases with such statements, e.g. to minimise noise disturbances, which does not have the force of regulations.
Malibuflyer wrote:
I don’t question what you say but if we are talking about true evidence/witness required to hold in front of a criminal court, there is no way someone on the ground with binoculars can ever tell how close the other airplane came to you – and only at very large cities could could tell that way if he was really flying over the city or just on the other side of the city perimeter. Estimating the distance just from the size of the plane in a binocular is just not something very accurate (to say it politely). So in the end the only one who could actually witness that he did that is you – and that is just one witness against another…Steve6443 wrote:
It’s not really anything to do with the proximity though. The first charge should have been for reckless endangerment – the guy flew unannounced directly through an active final even though he was a) on frequency and b) I had announced my position at 3 separate times.
The second charge should have been that he was wilfully ignoring the AIP which clearly states flights over the city are not to be carried out below 2000ft MSL. If you look at the location of EDLH, you will see that for him to be flying directly through the final of 06 as he was, he was in fact flying over the middle of the city (EDLH being one of the few airfields in the middle of a city and not on the outskirts) thus in breach of the AIP.
Concerning distances – the fact that I had to take avoiding action and the Flugleiter in his report himself said he’d never seen planes as close as we were, even though he’d carried out formation flying; he also claimed in that report that he believed he was looking at a MAC unfolding, underlining just how reckless the actions of the other guy was….. When you have a statement like that from someone with experience, it’s not just some passer by making an estimate to speed or distance…
oh, perhaps I should state that the Flugleiter was in the tower, my expletive caused him to look to his right, over to the Approach to 06 whereupon he saw both aircraft clearly merging into one, the second aircraft was climbing slowly through my altitude. The Flugleiter only took the binoculars AFTER the incident to see if he could note the registration of the offending aircraft as it flew past.
