Two aircraft collide over Coolidge, AZ

Seems a lot like that crash in Seattle a couple of years ago when a 152 with student and instructor crashed after hitting a float on a Beaver, I think it was.

RIP though.
 
The south practice area is insanely busy. I instructed out there for over a year and for the majority of it I didn't have TIS/TCAS. Once I got it towards the end I was amazed at the all the targets that I didn't ever see visual.

Sad news but at least there was only one fatality.
 
My brother called when I was at the grocery store exclaiming something about a midair over my house.

I guess since N. Scottsdale is in Arizona, Coolidge is in Arizona, you know, they must be real close.
 
Doug Taylor said:
My brother called when I was at the grocery store exclaiming something about a midair over my house.

I guess since N. Scottsdale is in Arizona, Coolidge is in Arizona, you know, they must be real close.
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they are basically connected to each other.
 
The pilot of a single-engine Piper Cherokee handed safely in a field about two miles from where the Cessna crashed. Neither the pilot nor a passenger were hurt.
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My brain must be tired, but that Handed part don't make any sense.
 
Students were Chinese from Air Safety Flight Academy. Kudos to the Oxford pilots for landing safely.
 
I'm willing to bet that to anyone that instructs out here this is not a surprise. It was only a matter of time, and if things stay the way they are it will happen again. It would be nice if those of us at the flight schools, especially the bigger ones, could meet and have some type of safety seminar to possibly come up with some ideas and just see what everyone else is doing to make sure we are on the same page.
 
rockman2343@aol.com said:
It would be nice if those of us at the flight schools, especially the bigger ones, could meet and have some type of safety seminar to possibly come up with some ideas and just see what everyone else is doing to make sure we are on the same page.
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Rockman, this already happens on a monthly or semi-monthly basis. It is called the Arizona Flight Training Workgroup, the website is www.AFTW.org. The chief pilots from ATCA (Lufthansa), Oxford, TransPac, Air Safety, Westwind, and others get together in the interest of improving communication, sharing training procedures/patterns, and increasing general awareness of other traffic in the practice areas. They even participate in briefings with training coordinators from Luke AFB. The website has tons of good information; I suggest you check it out if you'll be instructing in Phoenix for any appreciable amount of time.

It sounds like maybe the incident today could have been an issue of airplanes reporting on two different frequencies. Perhaps the Air Safety plane was reporting their transition over the Coolidge airport, while the Oxford plane was talking to Casa Grande. There are reports the Oxford plane was practicing the GPS 23@CGZ, which would imply they were in the "no man's land" near AYZUT, the IAF. AYZUT is in a weird place because it is in very close proximity to both Coolidge and Casa Grande. There is also a "South Practice Area" frequency, which means the pilots could have been monitoring any of the three frequencies. Most of the 152s at Air Safety only have one radio, so the Chinese kids only had a 33% chance of being on the same frequency as Oxford. Given these circumstances, See and Avoid would have been the only awareness both aircraft had, and we all know how tough that can be.

This is all speculation, of course. But when you break down the situation it becomes easier to see how it happened. I hate the hold at AYZUT precisely because of its proximity to Coolidge and Casa Grande (and to some extent IWA), since I know there's always a chance I'm reporting on a different frequency than nearby traffic. My guess is AFTW will agree on more standardized reporting procedures in that area, given the volume of local training traffic and transient cross country aircraft.

EDIT: After looking at AFTW.org again, I see there is a specific recommended radio procedure for the GPS 23.
 
Murdoughnut said:
That's my biggest fear in flying - RIP.
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Same here. I've had 2 close ones both at F70 in SoCal. You don't want to condemn one ethnicity but both times it was a Chinese student who entered the pattern incorrectly while making intermittent radio calls. The last time, the student decided to enter the crowded pattern on the base leg instead of the 45 for the downwind. I went evasive, but he never moved, just continued in to land and do touch and goes. Now, while I know that uncontrolled airports mean that "legally" he doesn't have to even make one call and can enter however he wants, but there are unwritten rules that we all follow that need to be taught.

That is all a conversation for another thread I suppose, RIP to the student, these occurrences are always awful.
 
GlenA said:
Same here. I've had 2 close ones both at F70 in SoCal. You don't want to condemn one ethnicity but both times it was a Chinese student who entered the pattern incorrectly while making intermittent radio calls. The last time, the student decided to enter the crowded pattern on the base leg instead of the 45 for the downwind. I went evasive, but he never moved, just continued in to land and do touch and goes. Now, while I know that uncontrolled airports mean that "legally" he doesn't have to even make one call and can enter however he wants, but there are unwritten rules that we all follow that need to be taught.

That is all a conversation for another thread I suppose, RIP to the student, these occurrences are always awful.
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You know what's weird as a pilot who did all of his training in the PHX area (specifically where this midair occurred today) and now acting as an instructor in the San Diego area... I've had a multitude more "near midair's" over Mount Solidad and La Jolla then I ever did in doing all my training in the Southeast practice area of PHX over coolidge and the area. Mt Solidad at 3,500 is about the scariest place I've ever been.
 
ClearedToTakeoff said:
You know what's weird as a pilot who did all of his training in the PHX area (specifically where this midair occurred today) and now acting as an instructor in the San Diego area... I've had a multitude more "near midair's" over Mount Solidad and La Jolla then I ever did in doing all my training in the Southeast practice area of PHX over coolidge and the area. Mt Solidad at 3,500 is about the scariest place I've ever been.
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yeah, no kidding, that place is a funnel for everything moving north, south, east and west in the area. The VFR corridor gets interesting too when you have people going through not on frequency and at the wrong altitude.
 
I used to like flying to IWA from Tucson to build cross country time. After an incident where I had a seminole turn into me and pass too close for comfort I decided to stick to southern Arizona. Too damn crowded up there...then you have new students and foreign students clogging the radio. I feel bad saying that...I was a ummer too not so long ago.
~D
 
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