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In aviation, a mid-air collision is an accident in which two or more aircraft come into unplanned contact during flight. 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. For this reason, accidents involving mid-air collisions especially during cruise frequently result in very few survivors or, more often, a total lack thereof. This is especially when the accident involves jet aircraft.

The potential for a mid-air collision is increased by miscommunication, mistrust, error in navigation, deviations from flight plans, lack of situational awareness, 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 airports, where large volumes of aircraft are spaced more closely than in general flight.

First recorded 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, Italy. On 3 October, Frenchman René Thomas, flying the Antoinette IV monoplane, collided with British Army Captain Bertram Dickson by ramming his Farman III biplane in the rear. Both pilots survived, but Dickson was so badly injured that he never flew again.

The first fatal collision occurred over La Brayelle Airfield, Douai, 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.

Traffic collision avoidance system

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, alerts pilots if a potential collision with another aircraft is imminent. Despite its limitations, it is believed to have greatly reduced mid-air collisions.

United States

On some occasions, military aircraft conducting training flights inadvertently collide with civilian aircraft. The 1958 collision between United Airlines Flight 736 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 into law. The act created the Federal Aviation Agency (later renamed the Federal Aviation Administration), 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 Flight Safety Division, led by Lt Col Edward Vaughan, used the disruptive solutions process to create a website called See and Avoid. It operated until January 2017.

Lists

This section is currently slated for splitting. After a discussion, consensus to split this section with List of mid-air collisions was found. You can help implement the split by following the instructions at Help:Splitting and the resolution on the discussion.

Involving civilians

Purely military

See also

• 2001 Japan Airlines mid-air incident – a near-miss incident between two commercial aircraft
• “ABQ”, an episode of Breaking Bad that revolves around a mid-air collision
• Automatic dependent surveillance – broadcast (ADS-B)
• Big sky theory
• Bird strike – a collision between an aircraft and an airborne animal
• Disruptive solutions process
• Ground collision – including a list of aircraft collisions on the ground
• List of mid-air collisions and incidents in the United Kingdom
• List of UAV-related incidents – for non-fatal collisions involving manned aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles
• Near miss (safety)
• Portable collision avoidance system (PCAS)
• Reduced vertical separation minima (RVSM)
• Runway incursion
• Traffic collision avoidance system (TCAS)

References

Notes

1. ^ All deaths directly attributable to the collision are counted as fatalities.
2. ^ In general, only occupants of an aircraft directly involved in the mid-air collision are counted as survivors. Bystanders who received nonfatal or no injuries, such as airshow spectators, participants in a military exercise, occupants of nearby noninvolved aircraft, and/or airport ground crew, are not included unless their involvement in the incident is particularly notable.
3. Includes three aircrew and 67 ground fatalities, refer to main article.
4. All ground fatalities, refer to main article.

Citations

1. "Eurocontrol".
2. Villard, Henry Serrano (1 January 1968). CONTACT! The Story of the Early Birds Man's first decade of flight from Kitty Hawk to World War I. Thomas Y. Crowell Co.
3. "Aeroplanes in Collision". Popular Mechanics. January 1911. p. 91.
4. "The Milan Aviation Meeting, Italy, 1910". Science Museum Pictorial. Science and Society Picture Library. 1910. Retrieved 13 January 2011.
5. "Continental Flight Meetings". Flight. 8 October 1910. pp. 828–829. ...the Antoinette monoplane crashed on to the biplane, both machines falling to earth a mass of broken planes and tangled wires.
6. Dr. Andrew Cook (2007). European Air Traffic Management: Principles, Practice, and Research. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. ISBN 978-0-7546-7295-1.
7. "ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 204203". Aviation Safety Network. Flight Safety Foundation. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
8. "Federal Aviation Administration – Home Page – TCAS". 2011-07-21. Archived from the original on 2011-07-21. Retrieved 2018-07-22.
9. "SeeAndAvoid.org". Archived from the original on 2006-10-20.
10. "Accident Description for HK-1341". Aviation Safety Network. 1972-07-29. Retrieved 2020-06-15.
11. "Accident Description for HK-107". Aviation Safety Network. 1972-07-29. Retrieved 2020-06-15.
12. "1973: Mid-air collision kills 68". BBC. 5 Mar 1973. Retrieved 2011-07-02.
13. "Accident Description for PT_GJZ". Aviation Safety Network. 1984-04-18. Retrieved 2020-06-15.
14. "Accident Description for PT-GKL". Aviation Safety Network. 1984-04-18. Retrieved 2020-06-15.
15. Guilherme Poggio (24 May 2010). "Sobrevivente do acidente com o voo 1907 da GOL rompe silêncio | Poder Aéreo – Forças Aéreas e Indústria Aeronáutica". Aereo.jor.br. Retrieved 2016-09-27.
16. "NTSB Identification: CEN14LA036A". 23 Jul 2015. Retrieved 2018-08-25.
17. Jeff Wise (6 Nov 2013). "What Went Wrong in the Skydiving Planes Collision?". Popular Mechanics. Retrieved 2018-08-26.
18. Kirinde, Chandani (6 March 2011). "Shocked residents see Kfirs crashing, pilot plummeting". sundaytimes.lk. Retrieved 29 November 2024.
19. Albeck-Ripka, Livia (28 April 2023). "Two U.S. Army helicopters crash in Alaska, killing 3 soldiers". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 29 April 2023.
20. "Three Ukrainian military fighter pilots die in mid-air collision". The Jerusalem Post. 2023-08-26. Retrieved 2023-08-26.
21. "Copter tragedy: 10 dead, no survivors, says Ministry". The Star. 2024-04-23. Retrieved 2024-05-27.

Bibliography

• Gero, David B. & Sparkford, Yoevil (2010). Military Aviation Disasters: Significant Losses Since 1908. Somerset, UK: Haynes Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84425-645-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

External links

• Bureau of Safety Analysis Division (May 19, 1958). Midair Collisions in U.S. Civil Flying (Calendar Years 1948-1957). Washington D. C.: U.S. Civil Aeronautics Board. – 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
• Indepth Backgrounder: Mid-air collision, CBC
• James Albright (Mar 28, 2017). "Big Sky Redefined". Business & Commercial Aviation. Aviation Week.

• Mid-air collisions
• Lists of aviation accidents and incidents