http://www.pilotweb.aero Pilot April 2015 | 85
that this damage occurred in mid-air.
It is likely that the aircraft would not
have been capable of normal flight with
such damage.’
Radar tracks for both aircraft showed
that the Kitfox had been maintaining a
southerly track of about 180° T at a
groundspeed of 64kt, and the Cardinal a
track of about 298° T at an altitude of
2,400ft amsl and a groundspeed of 118kt.
As the two aircraft approached, they
remained on a constant bearing with each
other at a closing speed of approximately
157kt. Assuming a wind from 260°/10kt,
The Kitfox would have appeared about 24°
to the right of the Cardinal, which would
have appeared 50° to its left. The main
wreckage of the Kitfox struck the ground
0.15nm from where the two radar tracks
intersected. Following the Collision the
Cardinal descended rapidly for sixteen
seconds at an average rate of 1,950ft/min
then climbed to 2,350ft before descending
to land at Bedford.
In its conclusion the AAIB says:
‘Recorded information indicates that the
aircraft approached each other in steady
flight, and there was no evidence to
indicate that either was in difficulty prior
to the collision. The accident occurred in
Class G airspace, with neither aircraft in
receipt of an ATC service, so the only way
to avoid a collision was the use of see-and-
avoid techniques. The following factors
may have contributed to neither pilot
seeing the other aircraft until too late to
avoid a collision:
‘Each aircraft had little or no relative
movement when viewed from the cockpit
of the other, making them difficult for each
pilot to detect.
‘Both pilots were navigating visually, so
their lookout would have been focussed
primarily in the direction they were
travelling. The pilot of the Kitfox was 3.6 nm
north of [his destination at] Sandy Airfield
and so it’s likely his attention was focussed
on his arrival into the circuit pattern.
‘There was airframe structure in both
aircraft that may have prevented the pilots
from seeing each other.
‘The position of the sun, low in the sky to
the south-east, could have made detection
of the Cardinal more difficult for the
Kitfox’s pilot.
‘In optimal conditions the Kitfox might
have been visible to the Cardinal’s pilot of
for approximately 17.5 seconds before the
collision; the Cardinal may have been
visible to Kitfox’s pilot for twenty seconds
before the collision. In more realistic
sub-optimal conditions, the Kitfox should
have been visible for approximately seven
seconds, and the Cardinal should have
been visible for approximately nine
seconds before the collision. US Federal
BRIEFS
‘THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED’
Thus, in his song Bye, Bye Miss American Pie, did Don McClean recall the 3 February 1959 accident
near Mason City, Iowa, which took the lives of singers Buddy Holly, J P ‘The Big Bopper’ Richardson
and Ritchie Valens, and their pilot Roger Peterson. Light snow had begun to fall and the ceiling and
visibility were lowering that night when the Beech Bonanza took off, then crashed a few minutes
later some five miles from the airport. At the time the then US Civil Aeronautics Board concluded
that ‘pilot Peterson entered an area of complete darkness and one in which there was no definite
horizon and that the snow conditions and the lack of horizon required him to rely solely on flight
instruments for aircraft attitude and orientation.’
Now New England resident and pilot L J Coon is calling on the National Transportation Safety
Board to re-examine the accident. He says that he has discovered several alternative explanations
for the infamous accident that were not considered at the time. One is that the Bonanza hadn’t
been refueled for the trip, which had been arranged at short notice. There was no fire and no
mention at the time of the smell a of fuel on the ground at the crash site, he says, although the
Bonanza should have been carrying sufficient for at least ninety minutes in the air. While other
gauges were mentioned in the report, information on the fuel gauges was conspicuously missing,
along with any mention of whether there was fuel in the wing tanks or in the engine, or whether
the fuel caps were secure.
Another possible scenario, he claims, is weight and balance. He contends that if the Bonanza
was carrying pilot, three passengers, luggage and a full complement of fuel it must have been near,
or over, its MTOW. And with Richardson and Valens, who jointly weighed around 450lb, in the back
seats, while Petersen and Holly who weighed around 160lb each were in front, it could also have
been out of centre of gravity limits
Other theories propounded over the years are that a ‘six gun’ belonging to Holly may have been
accidentally fired in flight. When it was found in a field near the accident site some time later, two
of the revolver’s chambers were empty, and there were never-confirmed reports of a bullet hole
being found in the back of the pilot’s seat.
Then again, Coon theorises, if Holly, in the right-hand seat, had twisted to his left to face the
rear passengers, his foot could have pushed the right rudder pedal, forcing the pilot to struggle to
correct the aircraft while already dealing with a heavy workload in instrument conditions. The
pedals were close enough to the seat that Bonanza operators sometimes removed them to
avoid interference.
Coon says he finds it difficult to believe that Peterson, with four years and over 700 hours of
flight experience, would have failed moments into a routine flight, essentially flying a shallow dive
into the ground while thinking he was climbing. “Roger would have flown out and about this airport
at night, under multiple different conditions. He had to be very familiar with all directions of this
airport in and out, and had 128 hours of experience in that particular aircraft,” he says. The owner
of the company which operated the Bonanza also disputed the official findings, and is quoted as
saying: “What got me is they said he was not familiar with this airplane, which is a crock of s**t. If
you drove your car out to California and to New York and Florida a few times, you would probably
be familiar with how the lights worked and a few other things.”
There are grounds for the NTSB to re-open historic accident investigations if new evidence is
emerges. In response to Coon’s petition the Board says it ‘hopes to determine if his request meets
the criteria for a petition sometime within the next two months’, and if it does it can then take six
months to a year to decide if the petition will be granted. If it is, the Board will change the
probable cause of the crash.Safety Matters | Compiled by Mike Jerram
Aviation Administration research on
collision avoidance indicates this would
have provided insufficient time for either
pilot to take effective avoiding action.
‘See-and-avoid’ is a not a perfect
technique for preventing midair collisions
due to the limitations of the human eye.
Technology may provide an affordable
enhancement which could reduce the
number of mid-air collisions. Until then,
whenever possible, pilots should be
encouraged to make use of transponders
in conjunction with a radar service, and to
maintain an active lookout.’The AAIB makes these further
observations about collision avoidance
techniques: ‘See-and-avoid can be
enhanced by the use of an electronic aid,
either air- or ground-based, to provide
range, bearing and (possibly) height
information. Such a method is called
‘alerted see-and-avoid’. Studies have
shown that this method can be eight times
more effective than ‘see-and-avoid’. There
are several TCAS and non-TCAS aircraft-
based electronic aids available, each of
which has its limitations. These aids will
only provide warnings of other aircraft that