I just read this preliminary report into the collision of a CJ4 landing runway 22 with a C150 departing Runway 150 from Marion Municipal Airport in Idaho.
What shocks me is the apparent complacency of the CJ4 pilot. First, he enters a ‘straight in’ approach without announcing any intentions, lands on Runway 22, again without giving any reports whereas the pilot of the C150 is – according to witnesses who were listening to the Unicom frequency – clearly heard announcing his intentions. The driver of the CJ4 ’can’t recall’ whether he made any position reports – fortunately they have his CVR and will see whether he did – but claimed he was using his TCAS which didn’t show any aircraft.
Well, bearing in mind, some transponders – such as my GTX330 – have an automatic ground / flight mode switching when a certain airspeed is reached, it is obvious he would not have seen ALL aircraft because they might not have been in flight mode at the point he was touching down. Who knows, maybe the 150 had a GTX330 or similar transponder.
If this report is true, that the pilot didn’t make any calls, flew straight in and landed even though there were others announcing a take off on Runway 15, I would fully expect him to be hauled in front of the courts…..
One could also say that the C150 started his take off roll when the jet was on a short final.
Neil wrote:
One could also say that the C150 started his take off roll when the jet was on a short final.
Yes BUT:
1) There are signs at the airfield which state that traffic on 15/33 cannot see traffic on 22/04 and vice versa.
2) The CJ4 did not even announce he was in the pattern, let alone on final.
Is a new pilot proficiency now supposed to be clairvoyance???
Citation at fault. Doesn’t announce, lands on rwy not into the wind, does a straight in, doesn’t seem to understand that TCAS doesn’t show traffic that hasn’t got transponders.
I hadn’t read the report. But the truth on who called what on the radio will come out upon analysis of the CVR
It’s astonishingly bad luck however it happened; the CJ4 could just as easily been one second earlier and the collision would not have occurred
Steve6443 wrote:
Marion Municipal Airport in Idaho.
@Steve6443, FYI, Marion KMZZ is in Indiana, not Idaho.
Reading the report it appears pretty clear who’s at fault here. The CJ landed with a quartering tailwind, did not announce anything (CVR to confirm). Even if the 152 pilot had been able to see the arrival end of the crossing rwy (as we know he wasn’t), he would not have expected the CJ to land on 22 but would rather have looked at the approach to 04.
172driver wrote:
The CJ landed with a quartering tailwind,
Crosswind to be fair no?
Doesn’t look good for the CJ4 pilot tbh.
172driver wrote:
he would not have expected the CJ to land on 22 but would rather have looked at the approach to 04.
I agree, but at the same time this seems like one of those things where you want to check both ends, because you never know what the crazy pilot in the other plane is doing. Obviously see and be seen has its limits, but I always check both ways before taking the runway, especially in low wind conditions where somebody might be tempted to take a downwind landing. It takes 10 seconds.
Of broader note: how does NTSB determine who hit whom in the narrative? It says that the C150 hit the C525, but I’m not sure how/why it couldn’t be the C525 hit the C150, since it says that they collided more or less perpendicularly.
redRover wrote:
Of broader note: how does NTSB determine who hit whom in the narrative? It says that the C150 hit the C525, but I’m not sure how/why it couldn’t be the C525 hit the C150, since it says that they collided more or less perpendicularly.
Because the nose of the C152 hit the tail area on the CJ4.
And 04/22 would be the normal runway used by a jet. 15/33 only has 3500ft vs 6000 on the one he used.
I really object to the timbre and tone of:
On April 2, 2018, about 1709 eastern standard time, a Cessna 525 business jet, N511AC, registered to Avis Industrial Corporation, of Upland, Indiana, sustained substantial damage when it was struck by a Cessna 150 airplane, N5614E, while rolling out after landing at the Marion Municipal Airport (MZZ), Marion, Indiana. The airline transport pilot and 4 passengers of the Cessna 525 were not injured and the private pilot and passenger of the Cessna 150 sustained fatal injuries.
To me that sounds like the author thinks that only the jet and its passengers matter, while the lives of those who died in the C150 are an afterthought.
It would have been just as accurate and rather more humane to have written:
“On April 2, 2018, about 1709 eastern standard time, a Cessna 150 airplane, N5614E, struck Cessna 525 business jet, N511AC, registered to Avis Industrial Corporation, of Upland, Indiana, while the Cessna 525 was rolling out after landing at the Marion Municipal Airport (MZZ), Marion, Indiana. The private pilot and passenger of the Cessna 150 sustained fatal injuries. The airline transport pilot and 4 passengers of the Cessna 525 were not injured but the aircraft sustained substantial damage.”
