That must be why they make our wind shields clear.
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Adsb has proven a great asset to safety, alerting pilots of traffic before getting a visual on them. I agree, advancement in technology can create problems, we see it at non towered airports, people not using their eyes to look for traffic, relying solely on radio transmissions. I hope adsb will allow these blind pilots to see others since they refuse to use their eyes.
I am also not sure how the legal requirement of only needing adsb out would have helped in this accident, I know others that tell me how valuable adsb in is allerting them of traffic before they had visual contact.
We know that if both pilots in this accident had adsb in and out and they both scanned their adsb screen that they would have saw the accident approaching and it could have been prevented, but, does anyone know if an aircraft only has adsb out what indication they would get from a traffic conflict? TCAS is great, maybe adsb in is the next best thing to TCAS for GA.
Compton has parrallel runways 25L & 25R. Both identical in length and width. I wonder if one aircraft was announcing the wrong runway. The C152 with Instructor and Student aboard probably would have not have made such a mistake, but the sole Pilot of the T28 being busy with pre landing checklist probably could have? Unfortunatly the Live ATC.net app on my Iphone does not have KCMP as a monitored frequency as they do with most of the non towered and towered airports in the area, so there may be no recording of that communications. I expect there were some pilots listening in the area however that may come foward duing the NTSB inestigation.
I have to agree with rocket and Gilbert. Looking outside is key.
Flying final to the runway does not need a distraction of checking
the latest magic box.
What no one seems to have mentioned (I may have missed it) is that it would be very difficult to see past the big radial in the T-28 with the C-152 below. We shouldn't be second guessing anyone here. Maybe the Cessna didn't broadcast on Unicom, maybe the T-28 wasn't listening, or was distracted. It's an accident. Tragic, sad and not the last one we'll see as long as people operate machinery. Let's not make assumptions, and let's not assume ADS-B would have saved the day - maybe, maybe not. Let's not assume that ADS-B would have been clear about which runway the Cessna was on or its exact position when close up - the 2 runways are very close to one another, and 25 is always in use unless there is a very strong Easterly wind - not common to the area. Keep calm and wait for the facts. The NTSB is is quite competent about finding out every detail.
Brian, the only issue I see with radio calls is what the others have mentioned here, radio isn't priority, it's to augment looking around and clearing the area visually. I agree with the others here about that, and thats what ticks me off when I fly a no radio airplane and a blind pilot pulls out on the runway as I am coming over the threshold, they dont look around they don't clear final, they shouldn't be allowed to fly until they learn to open their eyes.
Just like adsb is used to take a one second scan at the screen 2 or 3 times a minute to help you detect a collision threat, radio is used to let others in the area know what you are doing. Eyes are number 1 in the priority for keeping clear of other aircraft. Something went terribly wrong here, Im guessing someone was transmitting on a wrong frequency or had no radio, and that along with being blinded by the sun on final approach turned into a disaster. This is where adsb could have helped, as the t28 was on downwind or base he could have takin a 1 second scan of the adsb in display and seen the cessna, that simple. If you can take a 1 second scan to check gear down or flaps 40 or fuel selected to proper tank, than you can take a 1 second scan of the adsb display and than get your eyeballs back outside where they should be 90% of the time.
Whiskey Mike makes a good point, close parallel runways, so many factors here, maybe the best adsb could have done is given the pilot what he already knew, that there was a cessna down there, maybe he thought they were on the other runway, its obvious he did not know they were on the runway, hopefully the ntsb will find out what happened and if it turns out the blinding sun was part of the cause the will make a change and allow landing on the most favorable runway not just the runway that is used just because it is the norm.