How to Avoid Collision with Other Aircraft

Extract

These notes on collision avoidance by an experienced airline pilot are presented in the form of practical advice to young pilots. The paper deals first of all with blind avoidance and then with visual avoidance.

Collisions are rare and about one quarter of colliding aircraft have landed safely. Collisions are not always fatal to everyone, but they are serious accidents. Pilots need knowledge, skill, good habits and/or a little luck to avoid them. Collisions have occurred for years although in many cases the investigators have proved that the approach of the aircraft and the layout of the windows around the pilots were such that some of the pilots could have seen the other aircraft. Yet they still collided, so that obviously visual avoidance is not easy. In other cases especially in the circuit the aircraft approached and collided without much possibility of seeing each other; so remember there may be someone under your nose or above your tail who can't see you either. We all know how the high closing speed of fast aircraft is too high for human visual acuity to sort out the situation and prevent collision visually. But a number of collisions have occurred at low closing speeds and a number have occurred between light aircraft (e.g. two Convair 240's over U.S.A. in August 1953, and two light aircraft over Reading a few years ago).