Mid-air collision

{{short description|Aviation accident where two or more aircraft come into contact during flight}}

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File:Компьютерная реконструкция столкновения самолётов над Боденским озером.png]]

In aviation, a mid-air collision is an accident in which two or more aircraft come into unplanned contact during flight.{{Cite web |url=https://ext.eurocontrol.int/lexicon/index.php/Mid-air_collision |title=Eurocontrol}}

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

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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.{{cite book |last=Villard |first=Henry Serrano |title= CONTACT! The Story of the Early Birds Man's first decade of flight from Kitty Hawk to World War I |url=http://earlyaviators.com/ethomren.htm |date=1 January 1968 |publisher=Thomas Y. Crowell Co.}} Both pilots survived, but Dickson was so badly injured that he never flew again.{{cite magazine |date=January 1911 |title=Aeroplanes in Collision |magazine=Popular Mechanics |page=91 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Sd4DAAAAMBAJ}}{{cite web |url=http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/results.asp?image=10304784&wwwflag=2&imagepos=40 |title=The Milan Aviation Meeting, Italy, 1910. |year=1910 |work=Science Museum Pictorial |publisher=Science and Society Picture Library |access-date=13 January 2011}}{{cite magazine |date=8 October 1910 |title=Continental Flight Meetings |magazine=Flight |pages=828–829 |quote=...the Antoinette monoplane crashed on to the biplane, both machines falling to earth a mass of broken planes and tangled wires. |url=http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1910/1910%20-%200830.html}}

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.{{cite book |author=Dr. Andrew Cook |title=European Air Traffic Management: Principles, Practice, and Research |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vQ9LG6TWl9oC |year=2007 |publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. |isbn=978-0-7546-7295-1}}{{cite web |title=ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 204203 |url=https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/204203 |website=Aviation Safety Network |publisher=Flight Safety Foundation |access-date=25 February 2020}}

Traffic collision avoidance system

{{Main|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.{{Cite web |url=http://adsb.tc.faa.gov/TCAS.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721040203/http://adsb.tc.faa.gov/TCAS.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date=2011-07-21 |title=Federal Aviation Administration – Home Page – TCAS |date=2011-07-21 |access-date=2018-07-22}}

United States

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| filename = Interview-reduced size, Bobbie R. Allen at Staff Breakfast Radio Show, Pampa Texas, 1971.wav

| title = "We had the potential or the problem of mid-air collisions ever since Wilbur turned to Orville and said, 'Let's build another one.'"

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On some occasions, military aircraft conducting training flights inadvertently collide with civilian aircraft. The 1958 collision between United Air Lines 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.{{cite web |url=http://www.seeandavoid.org/ |title=SeeAndAvoid.org |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061020000103/http://www.seeandavoid.org/ |archive-date=2006-10-20}}

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Lists

{{main|List of mid-air collisions|List of mid-air collisions and incidents in the United Kingdom}}

See also

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References

;Citations

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;Bibliography

  • {{cite book |author=Gero, David B. |title=Military Aviation Disasters: Significant Losses Since 1908 |location=Somerset, UK |publisher=Haynes Publishing |date=2010 |isbn=978-1-84425-645-7}}