Mid-air collision explained

In aviation, a mid-air collision is an accident in which two or more aircraft come into unplanned contact during flight.^[1] 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, 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

Bobbie R. Allen, Director of Safety at the Civil Aeronautics Board said in a 1965 speech - "The threat of a mid-air collision has existed ever since Orville turned to Wilbur and said, "Let's build another one."

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.^[2] Both pilots survived, but Dickson was so badly injured that he never flew again.^{[3] [4] [5]}

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.^{[6] [7]}

Traffic collision avoidance system

See main article: 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.^[8]

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.^[9]

Lists

Involving civilians

Date		Fatalities	Survivors	Flights involved	Phase of flight	Site
1922	Apr 7	7	0	CGEA Farman F.60 Daimler Hire Ltd. de Havilland DH.18A	492 ft	Picardy, France
1929	Apr 21	6	0	Maddux Airlines Ford 5-AT-B Trimotor / US Army Air Corps Boeing PW-9D)	2,000 ft	San Diego, California, United States
1935	May 18	45	0	Tupolev ANT-20 Maxim Gorky VVS Polikarpov I-5	Cruise	Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
1938	Aug 24	5 + 80 ground fatalities		Japanese Flying School (Hanriot HD-1) and Japan Airlines Transportation (Fokker Super Universal)	Unknown	Ōmori, Tokyo, Japan
1942	Oct 23	12	2	American Airlines Flight 28 US Army Air Force B-34	Ascent/descent (9000 ft)	Chino Canyon, California, United States
1945	Jul 12	3	20	Eastern Airlines Flight 45 / US Army Air Force A-26 Invader	Descent	Florence, South Carolina, United States
1948	Apr 5	15	0	British European Airways Vickers VC.1 Viking Soviet Air Force Yakovlev Yak-3 fighter	Approach	RAF Gatow, Berlin, Germany
1948	Jul 4	39	0	Scandinavian Airlines System DC-6RAF Avro York	Descent	Northwood, London, United Kingdom
1949	Jan 30	2	33	Pan Am Flight 100 / private	Pan Am Flight 100 (Lockheed L-749 Constellation) / Cessna 140	Climb	Port Washington, New York, United States
1949	Feb 19	14	0	BEA Douglas DakotaRAF Avro Anson	Cruise	Exhall, United Kingdom
1949	Nov 1	55	1	Eastern Air Lines 537 Lockheed P-38 test flight	Approach	Washington, DC, United States
1951	Apr 25	43	0	Cubana de Aviación 493 US Navy flight	Cruise/climb	Key West, Florida, United States
1952	Jun 28	2	60	American Airlines Flight 910 private Temco Swift	Approach	Dallas, Texas, United States
1954	Apr 8	37	0	Trans-Canada Airlines Flight 9 RCAF Harvard	Cruise	Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan Canada
1955	Jan 12	15	0	TWA Flight 694 Private DC-3	Climb	Boone County, Kentucky, United States
1956	Jun 30	128	0	UA Flight 718 TWA Flight 2	Cruise	Grand Canyon, Arizona, United States
1957	Jan 31	8	0	Douglas Aircraft Company DC-7B Northrop F-89J Scorpion	Cruise	Pacoima, Los Angeles, California, United States
1958	Apr 21	49	0	United Airlines Flight 736 USAF F-100 Super Sabre	Cruise	Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
1958	May 20	13	1	Capital Airlines Flight 300 Air National Guard flight	Descent	Brunswick, Maryland, United States
1958	Oct 22	31	1	British European Airways Flight 142 Italian Air Force F-86 Sabre jet fighter	Descent	Near Anzio, Italy
1960	Feb 25	61	3	Real Transportes Aéreos DC-3 US Navy R6D flight	Descent	Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1960		May 19	1	38	Air Algérie Sud Aviation SE210 Caravelle 1A / Stampe SV.4	Approach	Paris-Orly, France
1960	Dec 16	134	0	UA Flight 826 TWA Flight 266	Descent	New York City, United States
1963	Feb 1	104	0	MEA Flight 265 / Turkish Air Force flight	Descent	Ankara, Turkey
1965	Dec 4	4	108	TWA Flight 42 Eastern Airlines Flight 853	Descent	Carmel, New York, United States
1967	Mar 9	26	0	TWA Flight 553 Private flight	Descent	Urbana, Ohio, United States
1967	Jul 19	82	0	Piedmont Airlines Flight 22 Lanseair Inc. flight	Climb/descent	Hendersonville, North Carolina, United States
1968	Mar 27	2	49	Ozark Air Lines Flight 965 Private flight	Approach	St. Louis, Missouri, United States
1968	Aug 4	3	12	North Central Airlines Flight 261 / Private flight	Descent/Cruise	Wind Lake, Wisconsin, United States
1969	Jun 23	120	0	Aeroflot Flight 831/ Soviet Air Force flight	Cruise	Yukhnovsky District, Soviet Union
1969	Sep 9	82	0	Allegheny Airlines Flight 853 Private flight	Descent	Fairland, Indiana, United States
1971	Jun 6	50	1	Hughes Airwest Flight 706 F-4 Phantom	Climb	San Gabriel Mountains, California, United States
1971	Jul 30	162	1	ANA Flight 58 JASDF flight	Cruise	near Shizukuishi, Japan
1971	Aug 4	0	98	Continental Airlines Flight 712 / Private Flight	3,950 ft	Compton, California, United States
1972	Jun 29	13	0	North Central Airlines Flight 290 / Air Wisconsin Flight 671	Cruise	Lake Winnebago, Wisconsin, United States
1972	Jul 29	38	0	Avianca Flight 626 Another Avianca Flight ^[10] ^[11]	Cruise	Near Las Palomas, Colombia
1973	Mar 5	68	107	Iberia Flight 504Spantax Flight 400^[12]	Cruise	near Nantes, France
1974	Aug 9	3	0	RAF Phantom FGR2 Piper Pawnee crop duster	Low level	Fordham Fen, Norfolk, United Kingdom
1974	Nov 1	38	0	Antonov An-2 Mil Mi-8	Approach	Near Surgut, Soviet Union
1975	Jan 9	14	0	Golden West Airlines Flight 261 Private flight	Climb	near Whittier, California, United States
1976	Sep 9	70	0	Aeroflot Flight 31Aeroflot Flight 7957	Cruise	near Anapa, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
1976	Sep 10	176	0	British Airways Flight 476 Inex-Adria Flight 550	Cruise
1978	Sep 25	144	0	PSA Flight 182 Private flight	Descent	San Diego, California, United States
1979	Aug 11	178	0	Aeroflot Flight 7628 Aeroflot Flight 7880	Cruise	Dniprodzerzhynsk, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
1981	July 28	3	1	Transporte Aéreo Rioplatense CL-44Soviet Air Force Sukhoi Su-15	Cruise	Yerevan, ASSR
1981	Aug 24	37	1	Aeroflot Flight 811Soviet Air Force Tupolev Tu-16K	Cruise	Zavitinsk, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
1984	Apr 18	19	16	Two VOTEC Servicios Aéreos Regionais Flights ^[13] ^[14]	Approach	Near Imperatriz Airport, Brazil
1984	Aug 24	17	0	Wings West Airlines Flight 628 / Rockwell Commander 112	Descent/climb	Near San Luis Obispo, California
1985	May 3	94	0	Aeroflot Flight SSSR-65856 Soviet Air Force Antonov An-26	Descent	Zolochev, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
1986	Jun 18	25	0	Grand Canyon Airlines Flight 6 Private helicopter flight	Low level	Grand Canyon, United States
1986	Aug 31	82	0	Aeroméxico Flight 498 Private flight	Descent/climb	Cerritos, California, United States
1987	Jan 15	10	0	SkyWest Airlines Flight 1834 Private flight	Approach	Kearns, Utah, United States
1988	Aug 28	3 + 67 ground fatalities	0	3 Aermacchi MB-339PAN of the Frecce Tricolori	Air show	Ramstein Air Base, Germany
1990	Apr 9	2	7	ASA Flight 2254 Private flight	Climb/descent	Gadsden, Alabama, United States
1991	Apr 4	5 + 2 ground fatalities	0	Lycoming Air Piper Aerostar Sun Oil Company Bell 412	Low level	Merion, Pennsylvania
1992	Dec 22	157	2	Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 1103 Libyan Air Force MiG-23 jet fighter	Approach	Tripoli, Libya
1993	Feb 8	133	0	Iran Air Tours Tupolev Tu-154M Iranian Air Force Sukhoi Su-24	Climb/approach	Tehran, Iran
1993	Nov 26	4	0	NZ Police Eagle NZ Police traffic patrol	Low level	Auckland, New Zealand
1996	Nov 12	349	0	Saudia Flight 763 Kazakhstan Airlines Flight 1907	Climb/descent	Charkhi Dadri, India
1998	Jul 30	15	0	Proteus Airlines Flight 706 Private flight	Low level	Quiberon Bay, France
2000	Feb 8	3	0	Zlin 242LCessna 172	Descent	Zion, Illinois, United States
2002	Jul 1	71	0	Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937 DHL Flight 611	Cruise	Überlingen, Germany
2005	Jan 18	1	2	Air Tractor AT-502B US Air Force Cessna T-37B	Cruise	Hollister, Oklahoma, United States
2006	Sep 29	154	7^[15]	Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907 ExcelAire flight	Cruise	Amazon rainforest, Brazil
2007	Mar 5	8	0	Aérospatiale SA 332 Super Puma private Diamond DV20 Katana	Low level	Zell am See Airport, Austria
2007	Jul 27	4	0	KNXV-TV news helicopter KTVK news helicopter	Low level	Phoenix, Arizona, United States
2007	Sep 1	2	0	Two Zlin Z-526Fs of the AZL Żelazny	Aerobatic display	Near Radom, Poland
2009	Aug 8	9	0	Piper PA-32 Eurocopter AS350 helicopter	Low level	Hudson River, New York, United States
2012	Sep 20	3	200	Syrian Arab Airlines Flight RB-501 Syrian Air Force Mil Mi-8 helicopter	Climb	Damascus, Syria
2013	Nov 2	0	11	Cessna 182L / Cessna 185F	Cruise	Superior, Wisconsin, United States^[16] ^[17]
2015	Mar 9	10	0	Two Eurocopter AS350 helicopters	Climb	La Rioja Province, Argentina
2015	Jul 7	2	1	USAF F-16 Cesna 150	Approach Climb	Moncks Corner, South Carolina, United States
2015	Sep 5	7	112	Ceiba Intercontinental Airlines Flight 71 Senegalair business jet	Cruise	Eastern Senegal
2019	May 13	6	10	Mountain Air Service DHC-2Taquan Air DHC-3	Descent	George Inlet, Alaska, United States
2020	Jul 31	7	0	de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver Piper PA-12	Climb	Soldotna, Alaska, United States
2021	May 12	0	3	Key Lime Air Flight 970Private Cirrus SR22 flight	Approach	Arapahoe County, Colorado, United States
2022	Jul 17	4	0	Piper PA-46 Malibu / Cessna 172	Approach	North Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
2022	Sep 17	3	0	Cessna 172Sonex Xenos	Cruise	Longmont, Boulder County, Colorado
2022	Sep 24	2	0	Zlín Z-526Zlín Z-526	Aerobatic display	Gera, Germany
2022	Nov 12	6	0	Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress / Bell P-63 Kingcobra	Climb	Dallas, Texas, United States
2023	Jan 2	4	9	Two Eurocopter EC130 helicopters	Climb/descent	Gold Coast Seaway, Queensland, Australia
2023	Mar 7	4	0	Piper PA28-161 Cadet / Piper J-3 Cub	Climb/Descent	Winter Haven, Florida, United States
2024	Mar 5	2	44	De Havilland Canada Dash 8 / Cessna 172	Cruise	Nairobi National Park, Kenya

Purely military

Date		Fatalities	Survivors	Aircraft involved	Site
1940	Sep 29	0	4	Two Avro Ansons of the RAAF	Brocklesby, New South Wales, Australia
1953	Jan 15	26	0	RAF Vickers Valetta RAF Avro Lancaster	Mediterranean Sea near Sicily
1955	Aug 11	66	0	Two USAF C-119 Flying Boxcars	near Stuttgart, Germany
1958	Feb 5	0	4	USAF B-47 Stratojet USAF F-86 Sabre	Tybee Island, Georgia, U.S.
1965	Jun 15	18	0	Two U.S. Army UH-1D Iroquoises	Fort Benning, Georgia, U.S.
1966	Jan 17	7	4	USAF B-52G Stratofortress USAF KC-135 Stratotanker	Mediterranean Sea near Palomares, Almería, Spain
1983	May 1	0	3	Israeli Air Force F-15 Eagle A-4 Skyhawk	Negev, Israel
1988	Aug 28	70	0	Three Aermacchi MB-339PAN aircraft of the Frecce Tricolori	Ramstein Air Base, Germany
1994	Mar 23	24	7	F-16 Fighting Falcon C-130 Hercules	Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina, U.S.
1997	Feb 4	73	0	Two IAF Sikorsky CH-53 helicopters	She'ar Yashuv, Israel
1997	Sep 13	33	0	USAF C-141B Starlifter German Air Force Tupolev Tu-154M	Off the coast of Namibia
2001	Apr 1	1	24	USN Lockheed EP-3E PLAN Shenyang J-8II	South China Sea near Hainan Island, PRC
2009	Aug 16	1	1	Two Sukhoi Su-27s of the Russian Knights	Moscow, Russia
2009	Oct 30	9	0	USCG C-130 USMC Cobra Helicopter	Off the coast of California, U.S.
2014	Jun 23	2	1	Learjet 35A Eurofighter Typhoon	Olsberg, Germany
2019	Nov 25	13	0	French Armed Forces Eurocopter Tiger Eurocopter AS532 Cougar	Ménaka, Ménaka Region, Mali
2022	Nov 12	6	0	B-17 Flying FortressBell P-63 Kingcobra	Dallas, Texas, U.S.
2023	April 27	3^[18]	1	Two AH-64 Apache	Healy, Alaska, U.S.
2023	Jul 1	1	1	Two T-27 Tucano	Villavicencio, Meta, Colombia
2023	Aug 25	3^[19]	?	Two L-39 Albatros	Zhytomyr oblast, Ukraine
2024	April 23	10^[20]	0	AgustaWestland AW139 / Eurocopter Fennec

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

Citations

Bibliography

• Book: Gero, David B. & Sparkford, Yoevil. Military Aviation Disasters: Significant Losses Since 1908. Somerset, UK. Haynes Publishing. 2010. 978-1-84425-645-7.

External links

• Book: Midair Collisions in U.S. Civil Flying (Calendar Years 1948-1957). May 19, 1958. Bureau of Safety Analysis Division. U.S. Civil Aeronautics Board. Washington D. C.. Google Books. – 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

• News: Big Sky Redefined . Mar 28, 2017 . James Albright . Business & Commercial Aviation . Aviation Week. subscription.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Eurocontrol.
2. Book: Villard, Henry Serrano. CONTACT! The Story of the Early Birds Man's first decade of flight from Kitty Hawk to World War I . 1 January 1968. Thomas Y. Crowell Co. .
3. January 1911. Aeroplanes in Collision. Popular Mechanics. 91.
4. Web site: The Milan Aviation Meeting, Italy, 1910.. 1910. Science Museum Pictorial. Science and Society Picture Library. 13 January 2011.
5. 8 October 1910. Continental Flight Meetings. Flight. 828–829. ...the Antoinette monoplane crashed on to the biplane, both machines falling to earth a mass of broken planes and tangled wires..
6. Book: Dr. Andrew Cook. European Air Traffic Management: Principles, Practice, and Research. 2007. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. 978-0-7546-7295-1.
7. Web site: ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 204203 . Aviation Safety Network . Flight Safety Foundation . 25 February 2020.
8. Web site: Federal Aviation Administration – Home Page – TCAS. https://web.archive.org/web/20110721040203/http://adsb.tc.faa.gov/TCAS.htm. dead. 2011-07-21. 2011-07-21. 2018-07-22.
9. Web site: SeeAndAvoid.org. https://web.archive.org/web/20061020000103/http://www.seeandavoid.org/ . 2006-10-20 .
10. Web site: Accident Description for HK-1341. Aviation Safety Network. 1972-07-29. 2020-06-15.
11. Web site: Accident Description for HK-107. Aviation Safety Network. 1972-07-29. 2020-06-15.
12. News: BBC . 1973: Mid-air collision kills 68 . 2011-07-02 . 5 Mar 1973.
13. Web site: Accident Description for PT_GJZ. Aviation Safety Network. 1984-04-18. 2020-06-15.
14. Web site: Accident Description for PT-GKL. Aviation Safety Network. 1984-04-18. 2020-06-15.
15. Web site: Guilherme Poggio . Sobrevivente do acidente com o voo 1907 da GOL rompe silêncio | Poder Aéreo – Forças Aéreas e Indústria Aeronáutica . 24 May 2010 . Aereo.jor.br . 2016-09-27.
16. Web site: NTSB Identification: CEN14LA036A . 2018-08-25 . 23 Jul 2015.
17. Web site: What Went Wrong in the Skydiving Planes Collision? . Jeff Wise . Popular Mechanics . 2018-08-26 . 6 Nov 2013.
18. News: Albeck-Ripka. Livia. 28 April 2023. Two U.S. Army helicopters crash in Alaska, killing 3 soldiers. The New York Times. 29 April 2023. 0362-4331.
19. Web site: Three Ukrainian military fighter pilots die in mid-air collision . 2023-08-26. 2023-08-26 . The Jerusalem Post . en.
20. Web site: Copter tragedy: 10 dead, no survivors, says Ministry. The Star. 2024-04-23. 2024-05-27.