On February 6, 2010, at approximately 1:30 pm local time, a Cirrus SR-20 airplane collided with a Piper Pawnee airplane, while the Pawnee was towing a glider near Boulder, Colorado. Three persons tragically died in the mid-air collision: Robert Matthews, the owner and presumed pilot of the Cirrus, his brother Mark Matthews who was a passenger (as well as a licensed pilot) and the pilot of the Pawnee, Alexander Howard Gilmer. The glider operation was conducted by Mile High Gliding Inc. The pilot and two passengers in the glider escaped serious injury when the glider pilot released the cable connecting the glider to the tow aircraft only seconds before the collision and then narrowly avoided the fireball that resulted from the impact of the Cirrus and the Pawnee.
The tow plane and glider were apparently climbing from East to West while the Cirrus appears to have been descending from North to South. After the collision, the Cirrus was observed (and videoed) to be descending, on fire, under a parachute, which is part of the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS). The CAPS system was actually incorporated into the design of the Cirrus aircraft by its designer, Alan Klapmeirer, as a result of a mid-air accident he survived.
Being that I fly a similar model Cirrus aircraft, there are certain piloting and technological issues that concern me about this tragic accident. First, while the “right of way” rules in aviation say that a glider and tow have the right of way over an airplane, this of course presumes that the aircraft see each other – or at least that the aircraft sees the tow and glider. This apparently didn’t happen here, or not until it was too late. All pilots have a duty to “see and avoid” each other, but that is sometimes easier said than done… For instance, in low-wing aircraft, like the Cirrus, the wings can block the view of aircraft approaching from below, as the tow and glider may have been doing here. From my military training, I remember how we were taught to scan across different sectors of our field of view, ie left to right, and also at varying depths of focus, ie far, medium, close… But even that may not be enough if an aircraft is constantly blocked by aircraft structure.
It is for this among other reasons that technology generically referred to as ”Traffic Collision Avoidance Systems” (TCAS) was developed. Such technology generally depicts where nearby planes are located on a GPS-like screen in the cockpit and gives relative bearing and altitude information, and some versions even direct the pilot how to avoid a potential collision. Such technology is available on the Cirrus as an option (I have it on mine). It is not clear whether this Cirrus involved in this collision had TCAS technology. Even if it did, the technology requires the other aircraft to be electronically “transponding” its position, and even then the technology has been reported to not always work properly.
While it is too soon to know exactly what happened to cause this collision, one thing is certain; pilots should use as many resources as possible to minimize the risk of a mid-air collision including proper lookout, proper radio communications and available technology.