The actual Cessna 172 involved in the collision. Photo by Aero Aviation Flight School.

Well, I finally got around to posting an update on the mid-air collision that occurred in California earlier this week.  The original post can be found HERE.

Search and rescue personnel managed to find all three bodies involved in a mid-air collision off the coast of Long Beach, California.  Two bodies were found at a depth of about 80 feet near the wreckage of the Cessna 172N Skyhawk (registration N738NN) from Aero Aviation Flight School, while a third body was found near  the submerged wreckage of a Cessna 310P (registration N5396E).

Cessna 310 similar to accident aircraft. Photo by Adrian Pingstone.

The occupants of the Cessna 172 were James Chong Choo (a flight instructor) and Thomas Reinhold Ferrell.  Flying the Cessna 310 was Gary D. Gierczak.  Its believed both planes departed Long Beach Airport (LGB).

Mid-air collisions are a rare event in aviation when compared to other accident causes.  In larger or advanced planes with electronic collision avoidance devices, they are almost non-existent today.  Most pilots do a good job of scanning the air around them for other airplanes, but sometimes accidents like this occur.  Unfortunately, congested areas with a lot of flight training and regular plane traffic, as well as planes competing for space as they travel over coastlines, tend to make airspace in places like California and Florida prime locations for mid-air encounters.  I remember when I was flight training at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, FL that there were three accidents during the course of my training there.  Two of those were fatal mid-air collisions.

I think a lot of pilots remember times when other planes came very close to them, especially near airport environments.  A lot of congestion tends to occur near airports that are very close to coastlines (of course, we’re talking uncontrolled airports here).  A combination of airplanes flying the airport pattern and others flying up and down coastlines require that pilots be on their toes.   I recall that in my second month as a pilot (I was still a student pilot back then), the instructor had to take extreme evasive actions as a twin engine plane was coming straight for us as it departed off a runway that was not the main one in use by all the other planes.  This happened at New Smyrna Beach Airport, in an area filled with flight training traffic.

Sometimes it’s not even a matter of scanning the skies or not, as planes can hide from each other in blind spots, similar to the blind spots in your car.  For example, in a Cessna 172 visibility is limited in places blocked by the high-wing of the airplane, while on the Cessna 310, the same thing happens, but on the plane’s low-wing.  Place a Cessna 310 at just the right spot above a Cessna 172 and the two planes cannot see each other.  Investigators will look at radar recordings to see what may have occurred here.

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Related Posts:

• Midair Collision in Long Beach, California.
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