Originally Posted by
sunnySA
My bolding. Perhaps I've misread this. Could you please elaborate.
From
this ATSB report (with my additions in red):
As ZVO (The helicopter) crossed the airport boundary (with clearance to cross the runways midfield at 500AGL), the engineer (the passenger in the helicopter) sighted the aeroplane (MJT - The Cherokee) and alerted the pilot. The pilot then saw MJT in the go-around, at the same height as ZVO, and immediately conducted a left turn to increase separation between the helicopter and the aeroplane. MJT was about midfield (half way along the runway) when the instructor sighted the helicopter (ZVO) taking avoiding action.At about 1441, the controller advised the pilot of ZVO of MJT as relevant traffic (But not the Cherokee of the helicopter), and watched as the helicopter turned through 360° and passed MJT.
At that time, the instructor of MJT reported that they broadcast, stating that they were going around. On the recorded audio from the ADC frequency, about 8 seconds after the ADC advised ZVO of MJT, the instructor of MJT can be heard to start to broadcast, but was then over-transmitted by another radio broadcast.
The instructor of MJT estimated that the helicopter was within about 30–50 m horizontally and at the same height as MJT. The pilot of ZVO estimated the aeroplane was about 200 m away, and the ADC estimated the proximity to be about 120 m.
(And from a bit further on in the report)
Instructor of VH-MJT
The instructor of MJT commented that they were not aware of ZVO before sighting it after the pilot of ZVO had taken avoiding action and the ADC had issued the traffic alert.
Pilot of VH-VZO
They were not aware of the other aircraft at all before they saw it – they had not heard a call and were not aware of any aircraft in the training circuit. They did not know to look there for other aircraft traffic.
Controller comments
The aerodrome controller reported that they were monitoring an outbound helicopter on the TSAD when MJT commenced the go-around. As soon as they sighted the potential conflict, VZO had commenced a left turn and the ADC gave MJT as traffic to VZO. An off-duty controller, who was in the ATC tower at the time of the incident, commented that in Class D airspace, pilots have responsibility to see and avoid VFR aircraft and ATC has a responsibility to provide relevant traffic information to assist them to do that.
Easy to see how, in the absence of notification of crossing helicopter traffic as part of the landing clearance, you're relying on pure luck to miss them if you do go around. Lucky that ZVO's passenger saw the Cherokee. Lucky that they were flying something that allowed visibility over the nose in the climb. Lucky they went around when they did, and not 2 seconds later... When I go around in the RV, particularly without a passenger, my pitch attitude is 15-20* nose up depending on atmospherics with the RoC in the vicinity of 1500-1800FPM and I'm completely blind under the nose when climbing at Vy. I'd say there's several other aircraft where that might be the case too.
Relying on luck to miss another aircraft by 200m (best case) or 30m (worst case) when that was only due to the helicopter taking avoiding action after its'
passenger - not the
pilot - first saw the traffic going-around is not acceptable anywhere, yet alone in controlled airspace. But the ATSB and ATCO's still puts it back on us as pilots to avoid traffic we may not even know about.