Human, All Too Human

After decades of faulting pilots involved in collisions or near-misses for inadequate vigilance, the NTSB now officially concedes that see-and-avoid is a highly unreliable system.

Peter Garrison

Monday, June 05, 2017 at 07:20 PM ET

Verified

The F-16 Fighting Falcon is a highly-maneuverable multi-role fighter aircraft. [Courtesy: U.S. Air Force]

Key Takeaways:

Two separate 2015 mid-air collisions, one involving an F-16 and a Cessna, and another with a Sabreliner and Cessna, were attributed by the NTSB primarily to air traffic control errors, including ambiguous instructions, inappropriate conflict resolution, and callsign confusion under high workload.
The investigations highlighted critical communication failures between pilots and controllers and underscored the inherent unreliability of the traditional "see-and-avoid" concept for collision avoidance due to human visual limitations and pilot workload.
The NTSB reports acknowledge the limitations of "see-and-avoid" and suggest that emerging electronic systems like ADS-B are a necessary and promising solution to provide unambiguous traffic information in the cockpit and prevent future mid-air collisions.

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In July 2015, a U.S. Air Force F-16 collided with a Cessna 150 near Charleston, South Carolina. The 150 fell from the sky, killing both of its occupants. The F-16 flew on for a couple of minutes before the pilot ejected and the crippled fighter crashed harmlessly in the woods.

The weather was clear, and the F-16 was performing a practice instrument approach at Charleston International Airport (CHS), which is also an Air Force base. The fighter jet was at 1,600 feet, flying a heading of 260 degrees to intercept the final approach course for Runway 15. The Cessna had taken off from a nearby uncontrolled airport, Berkeley County (MKS), and had turned southeastward, squawking 1200 and not in contact with controllers.