Mid-air collision

[ian16th]

I have a power outage and I'm sending this from my phone.
A reported mid-air collision, 2 aircaft involved. 4 fatalities.
Last night in Gauteng.
No more details.

[G-CPTN]

https://www.news24.com/news24/southafri ... g-20210427

[CharlieOneSix]

It seems both aircraft were Cessna Skyhawks and were on night training flights last night at about 2030. ASN reports them as ZS-PXI and ZS-OMN. They were from different organisations.

Really bad form from Storm Simpson of The South African who shows a photo of a Swiss registered Hatz CB-1 at the top of his online report - no comment to say it was a library picture and nothing to do with the accident.

[TheGreenGoblin]

Night Navigation Exercise gone wrong! Both aircraft tracking towards the GAV VOR!




https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... M12yE1ngbM

[TheGreenGoblin]

Night Navigation Exercise gone wrong! Both aircraft tracking towards the GAV VOR!

In a designated danger area, just West North West of Henley on Klip...

FAD.JPG (33.79 KiB) Viewed 694 times

[TheGreenGoblin]

It appears that the crashed aircraft ignited a veld fire... Fortunately this accident did not occur over a built up area, the name Grasmere still having some meaning around that area adjacent to the Klip River.

Pilots in FAD 182 (Danger Area) would have been reliant on Mark 1 eyeball, good position calls to other aircraft and maintaining vertical separation by using the old Hemispherical Cruising Altitudes rule. They would have had to to operated at a height below 6500 feet to keep clear of the TMA (UK Class A). All based on my dimming memory of flying in this area of course. Flying in and around Johannesburg/Gauteng can be challenging due to fact that QFE is based on terrain at plus 5000 feet and is a busy flight movement area (by African standards).

(1) On a magnetic course of zero degrees through 179 degrees, any odd thousand foot MSL altitude + 500 feet (such as 3,500, 5,500, or 7,500); or

(2) On a magnetic course of 180 degrees through 359 degrees, any even thousand foot MSL altitude + 500 feet (such as 4,500, 6,500, or 8,500).

Apparently it was a clear moon lit night and perfect for night navigation but it seems that eyes in both aircraft were not out or they were not aware of each other's positions.

[Pontius Navigator]

Assessing separation on aircraft lights at night is not easy.

[Alisoncc]

I presume Gauteng is the old Rand Airport. Which I knew it as.

[TheGreenGoblin]

Assessing separation on aircraft lights at night is not easy.

True, or on a dark fish bowl like night, to lose depth/height perspective and assume that the light from a fishing trawler was an aircraft coming directly towards one, like I did one night en route to Cardiff.

Can it be too light or too dark (it was a full moon on the night of the accident that this thread relates to)?


I really do feel for both flying schools that have been affected by this sad accident, Central Flying Academy and Skyhawk Aviation. Two instructors and two students have gone west.

[TheGreenGoblin]

I presume Gauteng is the old Rand Airport. Which I knew it as.

Central Flying Academy is based at Rand Airport and Skyhawk at Lanseria Alisoncc. Gauteng province is the "new" name for the Witwatersrand and most of the old Transvaal. Rand Airport is still so named.

[TheGreenGoblin]

Maybe it is time to go fully ADS-B, using proximity awareness tools like SkyEcho coupled with SkyDemon and the like.

http://forums.skydemon.aero/Topic28081.aspx

Both products are really quite affordable (in the UK anyway)... Both can be used legally in the UK (but not in Europe). I am not sure about SA.

SkyEcho

[ian16th]

I presume Gauteng is the old Rand Airport. Which I knew it as.

Central Flying Academy is based at Rand Airport and Skyhawk at Lanseria Alisoncc. Gauteng province is the "new" name for the Witwatersrand and most of the old Transvaal. Rand Airport is still so named.

Err no.

Most of the old Transvaal is outside of Gauteng. As in Limpopo and Mpumalanga!

When what is now Gauteng was invented it was called Pretoria, Witwatersrand and Vereeniging, and promptly abbreviated to 'The PWV'.

Part of the campaign for the renaming was; 'Who wants to live in a Three Letter Acronym?'

After the change, the ANC never again mentioned this. Especially to us in KZN!

[TheGreenGoblin]

You are right, and the ANC should have left well alone, idiots... Gauteng is basically the Witwatersrand plus, but not quite... Enough to make me lose my mind.

I was born in Pretoria. Is it still called Pretoria or is it now Tshwane? Where was I born?



Slight humorous thread drift, on a rather grim day for aviation in South Africa, let alone Gauteng.

[ian16th]

I'm not a keen follower of these things, but I believe the City is still called Pretoria.

But the Municipality, which includes some outlying places, is called Tshwane, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Where I reside, what was the Hibiscus Coast Municipality has been renamed Ray Nkonyeni Local Municipality!

[ian16th]

From Africn Pilot:

Not survivable: SACAA releases preliminary report into mid-air collision

The fatal mid-air collision during night-flying training southwest of Johannesburg on 26 April took the lives of two students who were busy with flight training in South Africa. According to the preliminary report released on Tuesday by the South African Civil Aviation Authority, one of the pilots involved was a 21-year-old Indian national while the pilot flying the other aircraft was a 31-year-old Saudi Arabian citizen. There were also South African instructor pilots in each aircraft.

The report found that the licences of all the aircrew were up to date and the aircraft had current airworthy certificates. The collision occurred over sparsely populated countryside southwest of Johannesburg in an area set aside for flight training. The two popular Cessna 172 training aircraft had departed from separate airports just after sunset. One plane, registration ZS-PXI and owned by flight training company Skyhawk Aviation, departed Lanseria International Airport on a night navigational exercise which would have taken it south to the general flying area before turning north towards Rustenburg and then back to Lanseria.

The other aircraft, ZS-OMN, which belonged to Central Flying Academy at Rand Airport, near Germiston, was on a night-time training flight to the same flying training area, the report said.

Both aircraft were equipped with transponders which broadcast a unique code that can be tracked by air traffic controllers. ZS-PXI was seen on secondary surveillance radar (SSR) entering the flying area at 19h00 on a compass heading of 210 degrees and at an altitude of 6,700 feet. Nine minutes later, the aircraft turned onto a heading of 30 degrees. ZS-OMN was also seen on radar flying into the general flying area at 19h05 at an altitude of 6,700ft, heading to the Golf Alpha Victor (GAV) beacon, a navigation located on the ground in the flying area. It changed heading from 250 degrees to 290 degrees shortly after entering the flying area. The two planes collided at about 19h11, about 1.4 nautical miles northeast of the beacon. One of the pilots aboard ZS-PXI broadcast a mayday message, which was heard by two other aircraft.

ZS-OMN crashed into a maize field and set the plants on fire while ZS-PXI travelled a further 600m in a steep nose-down attitude before hitting a rocky koppie. The burning aircraft was quickly located by emergency services but it was another few hours before a SAPS crew using a helicopter equipped with ‘night sun’ searchlight located the wreckage of the other aircraft. Both crashes were not survivable, the report said. Investigators found ZS-OMN’s left horizontal stabiliser and ZS-PXI’s left wingtip just metres apart from each other and far from either crash site, indicating that the planes collided left side to left side.

[Boac]

Can anyone translate the altitude into a quadrantal level? Which a/c was wrong?

[TheGreenGoblin]

Can anyone translate the altitude into a quadrantal level? Which a/c was wrong?

I thought I had already gone some way to answering that question...

https://www.ops-normal.org/viewtopic.ph ... 38#p288738

I would be interested to see what ZS-PXI did ref. altitude changes at the time?

It is difficult to make any decent assessment based upon that written assessment above methinks!

[Boac]

Not really - one (or both) were at the wrong FL. I was trying to see if it was possible to establish which.

[TheGreenGoblin]

Not really - one (or both) were at the wrong FL. I was trying to see if it was possible to establish which.

We have no timings or the durations these aircraft were flying on these headings and when they changed track, nor do we have their relative positions to the VOR, or the time and extent of any altitude changes made. Very difficult to start appropriating blame, on the basis of such a limited view of a dynamic situation even if an aircraft appears to be at the wrong level based on that sketchy description of their headings.

For me anyway!

Maybe a friendly controller can leak the radar plots and then we may be in with a chance.

[Boac]

We have no timings or the durations these aircraft were flying on these headings and when they changed track,

See ian's post at #15 - there are timings, positions and headings. PXI appears to have made a 180 but not changed altitude?