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In the very beginning, they didn’t.On June 30, 1956, an event occurred that forever changed the air traffic control system in which we fly. TWA Flight 2, a Constellation, left Los Angeles at 0901 headed for Kansas City. United Flight 718, a DC-7, departed LAX at 0904 and headed for Chicago. Both flights were IFR—TWA at 21,000 feet flying with a VFR on top clearance and United also at 21,000 feet.Both aircraft gave an estimate for the Painted Desert line of position of 1031. Both were precisely correct.At 1031 a message was transmitted that was later interpreted as saying “Salt Lake, United 718... ah ... we’re going in.”The airplanes had collided over the Grand Canyon.▲Artist’s impression: The 1956 Grand Canyon mid-air collision occurred on Saturday, June 30, 1956 at 10:30 am Pacific Standard Time when a United Airlines Douglas DC-7 struck a Trans World Airlines Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation over the Grand Canyon within the boundaries of Grand Canyon National Park, resulting in the crash of both airliners. All 128 on board both flights perished. It was the first commercial airline crash to result in more than 100 deaths, and led to sweeping changes in the control of flights in the United States. The location of the crash has been designated a National Historic Landmark in the US.The event opened the flood-gates of funding for a “new” air traffic control system, based on radar and transponders that is still being honed.9 March 1967; TWA DC9-14; near Urbana, OH: The aircraft crashed after an inflight collision with a Beech Baron. All four crew members and 21 passengers on the DC9 were killed. The sole occupant of the Baron was also killed.9 September 1969; Allegheny DC9-31; near Fairland, IN: The DC9 had an inflight collision with a single engine Piper Cherokee during approach. All four crew members and 78 passengers on the DC9 were killed. The two occupants of the Piper were also killed.6 June 1971; Hughes Airwest DC9-31; near Duarte, CA: The aircraft crashed after an inflight collision with a U.S. Navy F-4 fighter. All five crew members and 44 passengers were killed. One of the two F-4 crew members was also killed.20 December 1972; North Central Airlines DC9-31; Chicago, IL: The DC9 was taking off when it collided with a Delta Convair 880 that was landing. Ten of the 41 passengers on the DC9 were killed. There were no fatalities on the Delta aircraft.5 March 1973; Iberia DC9-32; Nantes, France: The aircraft had a midair collision with a Spantax Convair 990. All seven crew members and 61 passengers were killed. There were no fatalities on the Spantax aircraft.….and it went on…..Anatomy of a collisionLet us see in gory detail how a midair happens.The following appeared in Flying Magazine issue of Oct 1979:“We’re hit, man, we’re hit!”IT WAS A CLEAR, warm morning; the temperature at nine o’clock was already 85° as a Pacific Southwest Airlines Boeing 727, Flight 182, approached the Mission Bay Vortac from the northwest for a landing at San Diego’s Lindbergh Field.Another PSA 727—a link in a practically continuous chain of flights streaming up and down the California coast day and night—was already in the final stages of the landing approach, and a third was preparing to taxi for take-off.Apart from the PSA traffic, little else was happening at Lindbergh; a couple of transients were passing through the edges of the airport traffic area, and a lone Cessna 172 was practicing instrument approaches on the Runway 9 ILS.The active runway was 27, but traffic was so light that the tower had cleared the Cessna for practice approaches against the takeoff traffic flow.There was nothing unusual in this procedure; although surrounded by military and general aviation airports, Lindbergh itself does not have extremely heavy traffic.Just before nine o’clock, the Cessna had completed a practice approach at the middle marker and was climbing out in a north-easterly direction.The PSA jet—with a three-man crew and a deadheading captain on the flight deck—was just coming up on the VOR, about three miles from the Cessna and at its nine o’clock position.Both aircraft were in contact with San Diego Approach Control, which is located at Miramar Naval Air Station eight miles north of Lindbergh Field.Miramar is equipped with radar, an ARTS computer and a conflict-alert system. Lindbergh Tower has a radar repeater to assist in locating and identifying traffic, but the repeater is not intended for use as a traffic-control device, and the tower cannot give vectors or assign headings based on the radar display.Several sources of recorded data were combined to produce the following transcript of pertinent communications.Approach and tower tapes and the PSA cock-pit voice recorder were included. Note that tower and approach were on different frequencies; thus, the Cessna and the Boeing could not always hear one another.(APP = San Diego Approach Control; TWR = Lindbergh Tower; PSA = radio transmissions from Flight 182; 11G = radio transmissions from the Cessna; CPT = Captain; ISO = First Officer; ENG = Second Officer; ODC = off-duty PSA captain; CAM = unidentified cockpit voice. Cockpit conversations aboard Flight 182 are shown in italics. All times are Pacific Daylight Time.)TIME: 0857:06APP—PSA 182’s cleared visual approach Runway 27.PSA—Thank you, cleared visual approach 27.TIME: 0859:30APP—PSA 182, traffic 12 o’clock, one mile northbound.PSA—We’re looking.APP—PSA 182, additional traffic’s 12 o’clock, three miles, just north of the field northeastbound, a Cessna 172 climbing VFR out of 1,400.PSA—Okay, we’ve got that other 12. 11G-7711G [unintelligible] 1,500 north-eastbound.APP—Cessna 7711G, San Diego Departure radar contact, maintain VFR conditions at or below 3,500, fly heading 070, vector final approach course.11G—070 on the heading and VF ‘n’ R be-low 3,500 [unintelligible].APP—PSA 182, traffic’s at 12 o’clock, three miles, out of 1,700.PSA—Traffic in sight.APP—Okay, sir, maintain visual separation, contact Lindbergh Tower 133.3. Have a nice day, now.PSA—Okay.APP—Cessna 11G, traffic’s at six o’clock, two miles eastbound—a PSA jet inbound to Lindbergh out of 3,200. Has you in sight.11G—11G, roger.PSA—Lindbergh, PSA 182 downwind.TWR—PSA 182, Lindbergh Tower, traffic 12 o’clock, one mile, a Cessna.CPT—Is that the one we’re looking at?FS0— Yeah, but I don’t see him now.PSA—Okay, we had it there a minute ago. TWR-182, roger.APP—Cessna 11G, traffic in your vicinity, aPSA jet, has you in sight; he’s descending for Lindbergh.PSA—I think he’s passed off to our right.TWR—Yeah. CPT—He was right over here a minute ago.FS0— Yeah.TIME:-0901:08TWR—PSA 182, cleared to land.PSA—182’s cleared to land.CAM—[Deleted.]FSO—Are we clear of that Cessna?ENG—Suppose to be.CPT—I guess. (Sound of laughter.)ODC—I hope.CPT—Oh, yeah, before we turned down-wind, I saw him about one o’clock, probably behind us now.FSO—Gear down.FS0— There’s one underneath. I was looking at that inbound there.TIME: 0901:45CPT—Whoop!FSO—Aghhh! (Sound of impact.)ODC—Oh [deleted].CAM—[Deleted.]CPT—Easy baby, easy baby.CAM—Yeah.CPT—What have we got here?FSO—It’s bad.CPT—Huh?CAM—We’re hit, man, we are hit.PSA—Tower, we’re going down, this is PSA.TWR—Okay, we’ll call the equipment for you.CAM—Whoo! (Sound of stall warning.) CAM—Bob. .FSO—[Deleted.]CAM—[Deleted.]CPT—Brace yourself.CAM—Hey, baby [unintelligible].CAM—Ma, I love yah.Both airplanes fell in a residential area of San Diego; all the occupants perished, in addition to seven people on the ground, in what was then the worst air disaster in the country’s history.National media concentrated heavily on the story, hastily concocting diagrams and descriptions in which, for the most part, a bungling student pilot flying around with a hood over his head rammed the 727, often by overtaking it from behind.Months later, the press briefly returned to the story to report that the NTSB had placed the blame for the accident on the PSA crew for failing to inform controllers that they had lost sight of the Cessna.By then, public indignation at the event, and demands for the banning of all light aircraft and the sterilizing of all airspace, had subsided.Investigation of the probable reasons for the inability of the 727 to continue flying was inconclusive; one suggestion was that damage to the leading edge of the right wing brought about a stall of that wing despite full opposite roll controls (visible in photographs of the descending jet).Why the 727 crew or jumpseat occupant did not see the Cessna, which visibility simulations placed low in the center of both pilot’s wind-shields, was also never satisfactorily explained.The cockpit transcript shows that the crew was actively concerned over the traffic and searching for it.The morning sun was about 20 degrees to the right of the Boeing’s nose and 30 degrees above the horizon, and the clarity of the air might have made the white-and-yellow Cessna more, not less, difficult to spot against ground clutter.Other PSA crews testified that it was not normal to fly the 727 with their eyes at the “design eye reference point” specified by Boeing; the seat had to be moved somewhat aft and down to provide proper travel of all the controls. Such a movement might have put the Cessna closer to the bottom edge of the windshield and the windshield wipers.From the Cessna, on the other hand, the jet would not have been visible, even in the unlikely event that the two pilots had searched for it at their six o’clock position.One of the most significant aspects of this accident was that both aircraft were operating under radar control in a quasi-IFR environment; in fact, there had even been a computer conflict alert at Miramar 20 seconds before the collision.“There had been a computer conflict alert 20 seconds before the collision. Approach control disregarded the alarm.”The approach controller disregarded the alarm because he considered that the conflict had been re-solved by PSA’s reported sighting of the Cessna. Conflict alerts at Miramar averaged 13 a day; they were no cause for panic. Visual approaches by PSA jets were routine; in fact, everything that morning had been routine, except the accident itself.The NTSB investigation blamed the accident on the PSA crew and cited reliance on visual-approach clearances as a contributing factor.One Safety Board member, Francis McAdams, wrote a vigorous dissenting opinion, adding to the list of contributing factors various minor actions by controllers, a hypothetical third aircraft (never proven to have existed) that may have confused the PSA crew, and the fact that the Cessna pilot wandered from his assigned heading of 070 to 090, thus coming into line with the jet.McAdams argued that more stringent use of radar procedures should be made in a “dense terminal traffic area such as San Diego.”In other words, if radar is available, “see and avoid”—which he described as “outmoded”—should not be used.What the San Diego collision really shows is that no system, however complete, however favorable the conditions of its operation, can succeed all the time. San Diego is not a “dense terminal area”; see and avoid is not outmoded any more than are aural communications, dead reckoning or hand-flown landings.Moreover, positive radar control is no more infallible than any other system and has itself produced near misses and even a few collisions.Airborne collision-What the NTSB calls “a relaxation of vigilance” inevitably creeps into daily routines that are repeated for years without incident.A pedantic adherence to every detail of every procedure, always erring on the side of caution, has its own dangers.It is difficult to distinguish between traffic that is a factor and traffic that is not; and most traffic is innocuous.If all pilots everywhere were giving and being given constant updates on all traffic, undoubtedly some other mishap would occur because of excessive preoccupation with traffic.PSA’s reliance on visual approach procedures, the FAA’s approval of them, the failure of the PSA crew to become extremely alarmed over its lost traffic, and that of the Miramar controller to attend to the conflict alert, all represent pragmatic adaptations to the daily reality of flying.Such adaptations are evolutionary, and they are necessary. Some are avenues of learning.But a single dramatic failure should not be permitted to obscure the years of success of procedures like visual approaches.The seeming recklessness of the PSA crew in losing its traffic, or of the Miramar controller in ignoring the conflict alert, are really symptomatic of a smooth and generally successful daily interaction between man and machine.On September 25, 1978, a Pacific Southwest Boeing 727 collided with a Cessna 172 while on approach to San Diego, California, on a day of clear skies and unlimited visibility. One of the factors that has this accident etched in memory so vividly were the photographs of the plummeting 727, taken by a professional photographer who happened to be working beneath the fateful flight path that particular day.▲ Two images taken of PSA Flight 182 by Hans Wendt as it fell to Earth. It was 38+ years ago that Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) Flight 182 crashed in San Diego, but the wreck is still heavily etched in the minds of so many. September 25th of 1978 was a very hot but pretty day that would end with what was, at the time, the deadliest air crash in the United States.With fire raging from the damaged airliner’s right wing, the two photos clearly show the 727 as it pitched down, then rolled over and dove into the ground.PSA Flight 182 had originated in Sacramento at 7:20 a.m., stopped in Los Angeles, and was en route to San Diego. Onboard were 135 passengers and crew. The first officer was flying the aircraft and, at 8:57 a.m., the captain, who was working the radios, reported that they had descended through 9,500 feet and had the airport in sight. They were told to plan a right hand pattern to a visual landing on Runway 27.At the same time, a Cessna 172—with an instrument student and a flight instructor onboard—was climbing out to the northeast from its second practice instrument approach. It was, as required, in communication with the San Diego radar controller.The PSA jet was given the Cessna as traffic, with the controller stating “additional traffic at 12 o’clock, three miles, now out of 1700.” The captain responded “traffic in sight.”“OK,” the radar controller answered the 727, “maintain visual separation and contact the tower.”The controller then advised the Cessna “traffic at six o’clock, eastbound...a PSA jet…has you in sight.”When the Boeing’s captain checked onto the tower’s frequency, the tower controller added yet another advisory: “traffic, 12 o’clock, one mile, a Cessna.”After a pause, the captain’s response was “OK, we had it there a minute ago...I think he’s passed off to our right.”The Cessna, meanwhile, had varied from its last assigned heading of 070 degrees and was now steering a course of nearly due east, which had inadvertently put it on more, not less, of a conflicting course line to the jet.In the ATC control facility, the automated conflict alert warning system began flashing, thus indicating that the ground-based equipment was predicting that the two flight paths would cross with less than acceptable clearance.But because the system was a new one—with lots of software bugs that routinely caused it to sound alarms when no real conflict existed—the controllers paid little heed, except to remind the Cessna that there was “traffic in the vicinity—a PSA jet that has you in sight, he’s descending....”It was at just about that time when the people on the ground saw the descending Boeing overtake the Cessna from almost directly behind.The impact was taken by the underside of the 727’s right wing. There was an immediate plume of thick black smoke, followed by fuel streaming from the jet’s badly damaged wing.Moments later, a bright orange flame burst into view and grew continuously as the doomed airliner dove toward the ground.The results on the ground were equally horrendous, with the destruction of 22 houses and numerous vehicles.Seven residents were killed.The remnants of the wreckage of the Cessna impacted the ground nearly a mile away, although portions of it had become part of the 727 wreckage scene.Analysis of the accidentThe accident analysis showed that, naturally, the overtaken Cessna had nearly no opportunity to see and avoid the 727—although having wandered 20 degrees from its assigned heading was a significant angular displacement that made the collision possible.The Boeing crew, who had reported the Cessna traffic as being in sight, still had a number of opportunities to spot the 172 during its descent. The Cessna would have been visible in the lower portion of both the captain and first officer windshields right up until the moment of impact.Why didn’t the Boeing crew see the traffic? Going against them was the fact that they were looking down on a cloudless day, with a background of suburban landscape with all its colors and varying patterns. Also, since they were on a direct collision course with the Cessna, the PSA crew would have no relative motion of the target to help pick it out from the field of view beyond and below it.One final wrinkle in the complexity of this accident was the conjecture that the Boeing’s captain had spotted some other traffic, rather than the Cessna, when he initially reported that particular air-plane “in sight.”Investigators, using the radar records, could find no other traffic in the area—which doesn’t, of course, mean that the scenario couldn’t have played out as a case of mistaken identity, although the investigators concluded that it was an unlikely possibility.The bottom line from the accident investigation was that the primary cause of the collision was that the crew of the Boeing 727 had lost sight of the Cessna 172, but had also failed to notify ATC of that fact.There’s no question that our modern gadgetry would have helped prevent the San Diego tragedy. Today’s aircrew are fortunate to have electronic help in preventing midair collisions—technology that wasn’t available in 1978 at any cost. The Traffic collision avoidance system is compulsorily fitted on all airliners and is required equipment on any aircraft —even private aircraft — entering certain airspaces.With the advent of modem TCAS (Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance Systems) in nearly all large airplanes and TCAD (Traffic Collision Avoidance Device) electronics in an increasing number of medium and smaller aircraft, we are better equipped to keep pilots away from an unwanted meeting of metal.Improvements in radar surveillance from air traffic control and the dependability of today’s transponders and altitude encoders installed on most of the active general aviation fleet have also helped keep airplanes from hitting each other.And now, there’s a new kid on the block: ADS-B.ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast) is transforming all segments of aviation. Real-time precision, shared situational awareness, advanced applications for pilots and controllers alike – these are the hallmarks of ADS-B NextGen surveillance.Real-time ADS-B is used now for air traffic controlGeneral aviation is safer with ADS-B traffic, weather, and flight-information servicesSafety and efficiency improve with advanced ADS-B applicationsADS-B improves safety and efficiency in the air and on runways, reduces costs, and lessens harmful effects on the environment.Why is the FAA transitioning away from radar and towards ADS-B technology?ADS-B is an environmentally friendly technology that enhances safety and efficiency, and directly benefits pilots, controllers, airports, airlines, and the public. It forms the foundation for NextGen by moving from ground radar and navigational aids to precise tracking using satellite signals.With ADS-B, pilots for the first time see what controllers see: displays showing other aircraft in the sky. Cockpit displays also pinpoint hazardous weather and terrain, and give pilots important flight information, such as temporary flight restrictions.ADS-B reduces the risk of runway incursions with cockpit and controller displays that show the location of aircraft and equipped ground vehicles on airport surfaces – even at night or during heavy rainfall. ADS-B applications being developed now will give pilots indications or alerts of potential collisions.You will have many questions. See this link for details on ADS-B:Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on ADS-BLatest Status: The FAA has mandated aircraft operating in most controlled airspace in the US to be equipped with equipped with ADS-B Out equipment by January 1, 2020.FAA ADS-B Final RuleADS-B equipment plays an important role in collision avoidance.ADS-B Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)ICAO is also working on ADS-B protocols.With a global space-based automatic dependent surveillance broadcast (ADS-B) system in orbit, if and when it happens, there will be no more MH370-type disappearances.A ring around the Earth