Midair in pattern at KFDK

[Wolfala]

Class D airspace, no radar - not that it would've helped. Cirrus was above an R44, instructed not to descend till he was on base. Looks like he descended into the R44 and took out his rotor system. Keep your eyes way out there and give accurate position reports.

http://www.liveatc.net/forums/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=11975.0;attach=8084

[Gman]

Found a 30 minute recording of this and the subsequent radio traffic on Reddit.  Hard to listen to, brought back a couple memories for me.  The first day of ATC training 21 years ago this month they played us similar recordings of midair collisions and the rattled controllers and a couple with pilot radios being keyed just like in this incident. 

[SilverZ06]

sounds like the people in the plane survived and the ones in the helicopter did not. Very sad 

[GScholz]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDy2qI6ZVts

[colmbo]

Midairs scared me more than engine fires.

[Serenity]

Any word on the outcome? I'm sure I can guess, but I'm still hopeful...

[SilverZ06]

Any word on the outcome? I'm sure I can guess, but I'm still hopeful...

people in plane survived people in helo did not. 3 fatalities.

[Oldman731]

Midairs scared me more than engine fires.

Yup.  Seems to me, here in NE corridor, that I'm all-too-frequently finding that an enemy plane suddenly materializes not too far away from me.  Even with traffic on your GPS, it's often difficult to spot them.

I think of that whenever people complain that the AvA no-enemy-icons settings are unrealistic....

- oldman

[Puma44]

Yup.  Seems to me, here in NE corridor, that I'm all-too-frequently finding that an enemy plane suddenly materializes not too far away from me.  Even with traffic on your GPS, it's often difficult to spot them.

I think of that whenever people complain that the AvA no-enemy-icons settings are unrealistic....

- oldman

Well said Oldman.  Interesting how real life visual acuity compares to low end computers, small monitors, eyeglasses, etc for those who have done both.

[flight17]

Midairs scared me more than engine fires.

Same here! I have had one close call.

When I was working on my private, we were heading back into the airport descending and another aircraft was leaving the area and climbing but we were in the transition area where people are switching between tower and the practice area freq. But I never saw the aircraft until about 5 seconds away. I immediately threw the throttle in and yanked back on the yoke. We passed over the plane not more than 150ft. My instructor never saw him until after we passed and he asked what that was for I said to him, "did you not see that airplane?"

[helbent]

Heard on the radio that the plane was equipped with an emergency chute, thus the survivors. 

[DaveBB]

Who is it screaming on the radio?  It sounds like a helicopter engine shutting down in the background.

[Wolfala]

Who is it screaming on the radio?  It sounds like a helicopter engine shutting down in the background.

That would be the dead helicopter crew.

[rogwar]

That would be the dead helicopter crew.

Chilling.

[Shuffler]

The helicopter pilot's brother posted on ATC.