Jesus fucking Christ.

[tzikeh]

Shit that flies has to stop falling into the Hudson River.

I'm certain it's because I have no concept of what it is like to fly a small plane (well, or a large one, but you take my meaning), but I don't know how a small plane can fly *into* a helicopter. Clearly each pilot could see the other craft. Since all involved are dead, and I don't think they have "black boxes" for these very small carriers, I don't know if we'll ever have an answer.

Comments

[morgandawn.livejournal.com]

yeah, the further you are from an airport - the higher you need to be to be required to be under traffic control. ex: 10 miles out, no traffic control if you're flying at 3000 feet or under (the numbers vary). when you're within a short distance of the airport, the traffic control reaches all the way to the ground and everyone is on radar and under traffic control direction.

the majority of small air fields have no traffic control or radar and you're on VFR (Visual Flight). This means flying a pre set pattern (each air field has their own pattern/flight path which is recorded in a flight book that you carry and read before flying. I suspect that by now they have a flight book GPS). you also tune into the same radio frequency (again each small air port has a preset frequency) and radio your position and intention to the other pilots in the area.

And you spent time looking and looking and looking .

if you're new to the area you can easily make mistakes. there was the one time we flew into Barstow at night and missed the airport. we landed on an abandoned airfield (I knew something was up when I saw the gaps and cracks in the runway beneath our landing gear). we couldn't raise the tower on the radio so we had to jog to a pay phone to call the tower to let them know we had not crashed (this was pre-cell phone days). very embarrassing.

I add that I was only the co-pilot. and it was dark. and it was Barstow.