Spirit A319, skydiving plane in close call over Michigan
 

400 feet vertical, 1.6 miles horizontal, closest approach. Rapid descent obeying TCAS warning (RA?) leads to CC injuries:

FAA probes close call of Spirit jet, small plane

A319 was climbing out of Detroit at 14,400 ft.

"DETROIT (AP) — The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday it is investigating a close call between a Texas-bound Spirit Airlines flight and a skydiving plane that forced the jetliner to dive sharply over Michigan, as screaming passengers feared the plane was going to crash.

Flight attendants bumped their heads and luggage spilled out of overhead binds during the incident Sunday evening....

...Only after the dive was the pilot able to give out information, announcing only that a "flight control issue" led to the maneuver."

You do not need to upset the (apple) carts/tarts just to follow an RA! Each 1° pitch up or down will result in around 700ft/min change in vertical speed. Be gentle. :ok:

Really? Announcing a flight control issue to a bunch of pax? If they weren't panicking before they sure would be after. :ugh:

Yeah, I wondered about that, but figured it might be the reporter's interpretation of the passenger's interpretation of what the pilot actually said, so would withold judgement pending more detail.

Rule no 1 in PA: No need to tell the whole truth, but never lie :=

IMHO, if you mix VFR & IFR then this sort of incident is inevitable.
The para pilot MAY have had visual contact at 1.6 miles and considered that OK; the TCAS, OTOH, doesn't see it quite like that.

While we mix VFR and IFR ops in the US the dropzones I've worked at have always been mandated to stay in contact with the approach control facility they are operating in and announce the jump runs, etc. to the controllers. Controllers have always given me heads up about traffic as well.

That being said I know a fair few skydiving pilots who shouldn't be within 1000 miles of controlled airspace and take "in contact" to mean tuned in and muted on COM 2.

Air Traffic Control = "Flight Control" to the average journo?

Had a mate on the dc10 miss a free fall parachutist by feet...around ten grand...FO ducked!

Here's another good example of a near miss with sky divers. I think in this case it was the airliner of course.

I see that the classic dramatic shock horror style of reporting hasn't deserted our intrepid newsrag reporters yet! :hmm::rolleyes:

It's a bloody god thing that none of these Journo's appear to use surface -transport. :ooh:

They'd all have a heart-attack and die of fright in a car!....just imagine! less than twenty FEET lateral separation and maybe a couple of hundred fore and aft:eek: but wait!....there's oncoming traffic, loads of it, with less than 50 feet separation!!!!

The horror! the risk! and rumour has it, the licence provision requires little more than the ability to read and write.

As for RAILWAYS.....huge conveyances hurtling along 2 narrow strips of steel at ~60 mph....do they realise that means a 120 mph collision is only prevented by the gap of less than six feet, between these two flimsy sets of rails.

One has to wonder at the IQ level of both writer and target-audience for their output of drivel.

1.6 MILES isn't even a near-hit, let alone a "near miss".

CapnBlogs
It does seem to be a little on the overreaction side to do a negative G bunt when you are aware of the other aircraft and you are only asked for 1600fpm descent. Lucky that there were no injuries for the rear crew and SLF.

Not that I disagree about sensationalist news coverage in general - but in this case the "story" was the (apparently) violent avoidance manuever and its effects in the cabin, not the proximity of the planes as such.

I believe the request was for an altitude change of 1600 feet, not a descent RATE of 1600 fpm. Losing 1600 feet in, say, 25 seconds, takes a descent RATE of 3840 fpm.

And since the A319 was in climb, a change to a descent would have involved a total V/S change larger than simply descending from level flight. Say, a climb of 2000 fpm converting rapidly to a descent of 3840 fpm = net V/S change of 5840 fpm. Mild "vomit comet" maneuver.

Spirit management will probably want to charge pax extra for this service.

Very mild, acceleration needed for the maneuver you describe is something like 2.3m/s/s*. vomit comet manages 9.8m/s/s.

Still, it probably is rather alarming and uncomfortable if you're not expecting it.


*Assuming my math is correct. Possibly a bad assumption after a couple of glasses of wine!

Hi guys,
I love you for your assumptions -- i.e. educated guess -- I had a great fun, thanks, indeed. :)

Hold it. TCAS doesn't try to achieve any set altitude difference. It simply asks for a change to the flight path to miss the offending aircraft. Ms Cory doesn't know what she is talking about.

The 3840 is a red herring, as is adding 2000ft/min to it. If the TCAS gave over 2000ft/min change (ie a smooth pitch change of around 3-4° max) I'd be very very surprised.

I'll also wager that the continuing reduction in stick time (because of more use of the AP) will see more of these types of incidents. If you're not used to handflying, suddenly grabbing the stick and smoothly, gently but positively following the TCAS commands is difficult. A couple of practices twice a year in the SIM when you know it's coming isn't enough. No wonder Airbus is investigating the AP itself following the TCAS command without pilot intervention...

Capn Bloggs is right on. The first post made it obvious they had no clue how to go from autopilot to hand flying with no experience in hand flying an aircraft so they botched it and didn't just stay in the green area of an RA but put the aircraft in a negative G totally unnecesary dive.
The distance and altitude between them wasn't critical. 1.6 miles and 400 feet is not a near miss.
We did these maneuvers all the time in training and they are smooth pitch changes to stay in the green arc. If you never fly without an autopilot at altitude this might cause abrupt maneuvers. Spirit requires an RA alert to turn off autopilot, FD, AT and stay in the green arc.
I understand the Spirit pilots are encouraged to turn the autopilot on shortly after take off and leave it on until final approach.

We old guys don't agree with autopilot reliance because as has been seen recently AF and now Spirit has shown what autopilot reliance does to pilots flying skills.
Just let these pilots handfly so they don't do this any more. If your checklist says autopilot off then that means the pilot can hand fly. He can't if his company doesn't allow it.