I’m not sure what to make of this incident, other than being grateful that the Southwest Airlines pilots seemed to know what they were doing…
Continue reading: Mess: Southwest 737 & Cessna Citation Mid-Air Close Call Near Van Nuys
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Perhaps Tim Dunn can advise us why Delta is a premium carrier compared to Southwest or this Cessna jet?
This has eerily similar shades of the mid-air collision in San Diego with PSA 182 and a Cessna(?) in the late 70's/early 80's. SoCal. PSA, a (the first, really) low cost carrier. Scary.
It says right on the approach plate for the VOR-B at Van Nuys: "A descent to at or below 1750 may be required when executing an early missed approach". This is specifically because an early climb will put them right in approach path for Burbank.
He doesn't have posting abilities currently so give it a rest. Don't let him live rent free in your head.
Very poor planning on the part of the Citation pilots for not briefing the missed approach procedure prior to commencing the approach, especially at a busy airport like VNY with BUR just 8 miles away as Ben mentions. Back when I began IFR training, we always had to brief what we would do in case we went missed as your instructor could call for a go around at any times.
Agreed, PW. People who fixate on TD when he's not even posting are not making positive contributions to this community.
Seems like the Citation wasn’t prepared for the missed approach.
That being said, the VNY controller was giving him VFR instructions initially, not IFR instructions. It makes me wonder if he was originally cleared for the visual approach, contact approach, or something like that. Things like “advise you maintain” and “resume own navigation” are VFR instructions, not IFR. Same for the visual traffic callout. That would make more sense for what happened, since the pilot on the visual wouldn’t have a particular missed approach to fly and instead would be expected to execute a normal go around and then follow ATC heading and altitude instructions. A key requirement for a visual approach is that you report the field in sight though, which either didn’t happen or the storm moving over the field subsequently obscured his vision.
All of that being said, if he was on a visual or contact approach, the Tower’s subsequent instructions to fly the missed approach doesn’t make sense, so something doesn’t add up here.
PSA wasn't low cost. It bought the Lockheed L-1011 Tristar for SFO-LAX! It also had flights between SFO and LAX every 30 minutes using BAe 146 jets.
The pilot asked twice for vectors. Then give him 3 digits, but he never got them.
Question for pilots- will there be any consequences for the Citation pilot? Im curious if records are kept for these types of incidents where a pilot couldve have caused an accident and if there are consequences.
SoCal airspace is overcrowded and while it’s not DCA or EWR, the number of small airports that directly conflict with major ones is insane. Many private pilots I know loathe crossing the LA basin because of the stress it causes. Weather is usually the least of our concerns, but add it in and there’s a lot of risk. All the major airports are well separated, but it’s the small strips that are concerning.
GA rules might need a reshuffle or some special certifications going forward, esp for VNY.
Only if the tower controller submits a report about the incident or the Southwest pilot might file a NASA type report but those are de-identified. My guess is the tower controller won’t write it up since it wasn’t his finest hour either.
Multiple aviation sources, PSA itself, and Wikipedia, would disagree with you. Low cost is a business model, not a measure of what aircraft are purchased or how much fares cost. To wit:
https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/30498-first-low-cost-carrier-in-the-united-states
https://www.aviation-professional.net/2022/02/Low-CostCarrierLCCBusinessModel.html
https://www.psa-history.org/memorabilia/history_by_year/