Originally Posted by
Trevor the lover
Hi Leady and Homesick Angel - just want to clarify my comments which you guys responded to. My comment was not regarding this tragedy. I was responding to Andrew R's stand alone comment of "We know aircraft in IMC cannot adequately self separate". I was pointing out the fact that IFR aircraft CAN adequately separate themselves. Most of the fails I give out at work when doing airborne checks are based on pilots not ensuring "positive" separation. "you go left, I'll go right" is not positive separation. (actually that should be you go right and I'll go right if approaching head on). Separation must be based on altitude, DME, radial/bearing, or geographical features.
As I said, I wasn't referring to this case. The experience levels in this accident were certainly high enough to ensure positive separation one would think. So what went wrong? At this stage, God only knows.
Reference the comments about Mildura - yep, I reckon an accident is on its way there. Why the hell do flying schools send training flights out in waves??? We did that in the military but we were operating in protected Restricted airspace. Mildura and Ballarat send em out in waves and arriving aircraft are greeted with 6 in the circuit or none in the circuit. Surely they can do better than that.
Agreed TTL: They “can” self-separate as a matter of abstract principle. Whether they can in a particular set of circumstances depends on that particular set of circumstances.
IF - big IF -JQF was in fact
deliberately levelled out at around 4,000’ there will be a reason. And it
cannot logically be that PIC JQF understood that AEM was also at around 4,000’.
Successful self-separation depends on a mutual understanding of the same set of ‘facts’ - either accurate or inaccurate. Doesn’t matter whether the ‘facts’ are true or untrue, provided that the understanding is mutual.
And I agree (“absolutely” and “100 percent”) re Mildura. I’ve said it many times in many different ways: If the level of risk to which passengers on HCRPT aircraft are exposed during flights in and out of Mildura are ‘acceptable’ to the regulator and the operators, I can’t see why the regulator bothers with the risks of e.g. ‘Community Service Flights’ (other than for reasons of political expediency).