Mid-air Collision
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aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot air ...
, a mid-air collision is an
accident An accident is an unintended, normally unwanted event that was not directly caused by humans. The term ''accident'' implies that nobody should be blamed, but the event may have been caused by unrecognized or unaddressed risks. Most researcher ...
in which two or more
aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines ...
come into unplanned contact during
flight Flight or flying is the process by which an object moves through a space without contacting any planetary surface, either within an atmosphere (i.e. air flight or aviation) or through the vacuum of outer space (i.e. spaceflight). This can be a ...
. Owing to the relatively high velocities involved and the likelihood of subsequent impact with the ground or sea, very severe damage or the total destruction of at least one of the aircraft usually results. The potential for a mid-air collision is increased by
miscommunication Miscommunication ("''mis''" + "''communication''") is defined as a social inability to communicate adequately and properly. It is one of many types of communication barriers. It is an instant where either the speaker is unable to provide the p ...
, mistrust, error in
navigation Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation, ...
, deviations from
flight plan Flight plans are documents filed by a pilot or flight dispatcher with the local Air Navigation Service Provider (e.g. the FAA in the United States) prior to departure which indicate the plane's planned route or flight path. Flight plan format is ...
s, lack of
situational awareness Situational awareness or situation awareness (SA) is the perception of environmental elements and events with respect to time or space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their future status. An alternative definition is tha ...
, and the lack of collision-avoidance systems. Although a rare occurrence in general due to the vastness of open space available, collisions often happen near or at
airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...
s, where large volumes of aircraft are spaced more closely than in general flight.


First recorded mid-air collision

The first recorded collision between aircraft occurred at the "Milano Circuito Aereo Internazionale" meeting held between 24 September and 3 October 1910 in
Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
, Italy. On 3 October, Frenchman René Thomas, flying the
Antoinette IV The Antoinette IV was an early French monoplane. Design and development The Antoinette IV was a high-wing aircraft with a fuselage of extremely narrow triangular cross-section and a cruciform tail. Power was provided by a V8 engine of Léon Lev ...
monoplane, collided with British Army Captain
Bertram Dickson Captain Bertram Dickson RHA (21 December 1873 – 28 September 1913) was a pioneer Scottish airman and the first British serviceman to qualify as a pilot. His exploits in the air, watched by Winston Churchill and Lord Kitchener, indirec ...
by ramming his
Farman III The Farman III, also known as the Henry Farman 1909 biplane, was an early French aircraft designed and built by Henry FarmanLa Brayelle Airfield La Brayelle Airfield was one of the first airfields in France. It was situated west of Douai, in the Nord département in northern France. It was host to the world's first aviation meeting, home to Bréguet Aviation, and an important airfield i ...
,
Douai Douai (, , ,; pcd, Doï; nl, Dowaai; formerly spelled Douay or Doway in English) is a city in the Nord département in northern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department. Located on the river Scarpe some from Lille and from Arras, D ...
, France, on 19 June 1912. Captain Marcel Dubois and Lieutenant Albert Peignan, both of the French Army, crashed into one another in an early-morning haze, killing both pilots.


Efforts to prevent collisions


TCAS

Almost all modern large aircraft are fitted with a traffic collision avoidance system (TCAS), which is designed to try to prevent mid-air collisions. The system, based on the signals from aircraft
transponders In telecommunications, a transponder is a device that, upon receiving a signal, emits a different signal in response. The term is a blend of ''transmitter'' and ''responder''. In air navigation or radio frequency identification, a flight trans ...
, alerts pilots if a potential collision with another aircraft is imminent. Despite its limitations, it is believed to have greatly reduced mid-air collisions.


Civilian/military mid-air collisions in the United States

On some occasions, military aircraft conducting training flights inadvertently collide with civilian aircraft. Before 1958, civilian air traffic controllers guiding civilian flights and military controllers guiding military aircraft were both unaware of the other's aircraft. The 1958 collision between
United Airlines Flight 736 United Air Lines Flight 736 was a scheduled transcontinental passenger service flown daily by United Airlines between Los Angeles and New York City. On April21, 1958, the airliner assigned to the flight, a Douglas DC-7 with 47 on board, was fl ...
and a fighter jet, and another U.S. military/civilian crash one month later involving Capital Airlines Flight 300, hastened the signing of the
Federal Aviation Act of 1958 The Federal Aviation Act of 1958 was an act of the United States Congress, signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, that created the Federal Aviation Agency (later the Federal Aviation Administration or the FAA) and abolished its predecessor, t ...
into law. The act created the Federal Aviation Agency (later renamed the
Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...
), and provided unified control of airspace for both civil and military flights. In 2005, in an effort to reduce such military/civilian mid-air collisions in U.S. airspace, the
Air National Guard The Air National Guard (ANG), also known as the Air Guard, is a federal military reserve force of the United States Air Force, as well as the air militia of each U.S. state, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the ter ...
Flight Safety Division, led by Lt Col Edward Vaughan, used the
disruptive solutions process The disruptive solutions process (DSP) is a form of iterative, low-cost, first-to-market development created in 2005 by fighter pilot and United States Air Force/Air National Guard Colonel Edward Vaughan. It is primarily used by the Air National G ...
to create th
See and Avoid
web portal. In late 2006, the U.S. Defense Safety Oversight Council recognized and funded the site as its official civil/military mid-air collision prevention website, with participation by all the services.


List of notable civilian and military–civilian mid-air collisions


List of notable military mid-air collisions


See also

* 2001 Japan Airlines mid-air incident – a near-miss incident between two commercial aircraft * “
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”, an episode of ''
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'' that revolves around a mid-air collision *
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(ADS-B) * Big sky theory *
Bird strike A bird strike—sometimes called birdstrike, bird ingestion (for an engine), bird hit, or bird aircraft strike hazard (BASH)—is a collision between an airborne animal (usually a bird or bat) and a moving vehicle, usually an aircraft. The term ...
– a collision between an aircraft and an airborne animal *
Disruptive solutions process The disruptive solutions process (DSP) is a form of iterative, low-cost, first-to-market development created in 2005 by fighter pilot and United States Air Force/Air National Guard Colonel Edward Vaughan. It is primarily used by the Air National G ...
* List of mid-air collisions and incidents in the United Kingdom *
List of UAV-related incidents Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, have frequently been involved in military operations. Non-military UAVs have often been reported as causing hazards to aircraft, or to people or property on the ground. Safety concerns have been raised ...
– for non-fatal collisions involving manned aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles *
Near miss (safety) A near miss, near hit or close call is an unplanned event that has the potential to cause, but does not actually result in human injury, environmental or equipment damage, or an interruption to normal operation. OSHA defines a near miss as an in ...
* Portable collision avoidance system (PCAS) *
Runway incursion A runway incursion is an aviation incident involving improper positioning of vehicles or people on any airport runway or its protected area. When an incursion involves an ''active'' runway being used by arriving or departing aircraft, the pot ...
– including a list of aircraft collisions on the ground * Traffic collision avoidance system (TCAS)


References

;Notes ;Citations ;Bibliography *


External links

* – Tabular statistics and summaries of over 100 midair collisions in U.S. from 1948 to 1957
Analysis of Mid-Air Collisions
One of the most hazardous consequences of a loss of separation between aircraft, including as a result of a level bust, is a mid-air collision ''
SKYbrary SKYbrary is a wiki created by the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, International Civil Aviation Organization, and the Flight Safety Foundation to create a comprehensive source of aviation safety information freely available on ...
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Indepth Backgrounder: Mid-air collision
'' CBC'' * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mid-Air Collision