The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has issued its final report on the deadly midair collision that killed all four aboard two aircraft over North Las Vegas Airport in July 2022. The report targets pilot error (one aircraft lining up for the wrong runway), controller mistakes, and controller staffing shortages as probable causes in the accident.
As a pilot and retired air traffic controller I would suggest that the “overhead” approach to the pattern be modified, especially for high performance aircraft (which the Malibu is), to cross over the departure end of the runway to enter downwind leg instead of at midfield. Even for a non-high performance aircraft the midfield overfly results in the aircraft being subjected to a near continuous turn to final, or at least a very abbreviated downwind leg.
I also recall being given a visual approach at several thousand feet above an airport, in a low-wing airplane, and vectored directly over the airport which kept the airport out of sight under my nose and also under my wing, resulting in excessive maneuvering and distance flown prior to sighting the airport and entering the pattern.
If you’re flying into an airport in a high performance airplane, wouldn’t it be cool to have some form of final approach guidance? Most professionals would be following the final approach guidance from an instrument approach, but 30L doesn’t have one. The next best would be to OBS around the “airport” (i.e. the Airport Reference Point).
The problem with ARPs is that they’re not “Runway Reference Points”. In this case, the ARP is right in the middle of runway 30R (due to the crossing runway). Just as happened during the APA accident a few years ago (Cirrus and Metroliner), the overshooting airplane was maneuvering as if it was lining up with an OBS course.
Neither final report makes any mention of navigation modes or GPS capabilities. (In this case, there may be no way to determine it). But, both VGT and APA have extremely closely spaced runways and an ARP location that can lead to a midair.
Since exact location of the ARP is of little consequence, is it too much to ask for the FAA to place the ARP between the parallels whenever possible?
Instructions were to overfly the field and enter a midfield left downwind. This is not an overhead approach (AIM 5-4-27). An overhead would have involved a 3-5 mi initial approach (from the south flying runway heading), flat 180 degree break to downwind at specified break point (numbers, midfield, etc.), slowing to approach speed, level wings, configure for landing, then descending 180 to landing. Hard to say if low wing carried too much speed and overshot runway or mis-identified correct runway, but if an overhead had been performed the low wing aircraft would have lined up to the correct runway on initial, had more SA on other traffic in the pattern, and the 180 degree break to downwind would have dissipated more speed. IMO the biggest factor was not rolling out on downwind and getting speed under control before starting base turn.
High wing in a right turn, low wing in a left. Sad, but instructional. Still, they should have seen each other before the impart. Especially the Mirage.
Ironically, this accident occurred when the JetProp was returning to home base at VGT after attending a weekend Malibu M-Class Safety Seminar at Coeur D’Alene. My wife and I also attended, and we had dinner with the accident pilots the night before their demise. The husband seemed a normal fellow, a bit hard of hearing, but no obvious cognitive issues. His wife seemed a bit more chipper. When my wife [who is also a Mirage pilot] asked her if she flew the JetProp her response was “I mostly work the radios”, which is consistent with the NTSB narrative.
There are, however, a couple of things about this report which I find disturbing, or at the very least, lacking.
This was not the first time that the JetProp had ever flown an overhead entry to VGT, in fact in the weeks before the accident he had done so several times, landing both on 30L and 12R. What was different about this flight was that he flew the downwind on the accident flight much closer to the airport than on the previous flights-I would need to go back thru the ADS-B data, but the difference was on the order of 1/4-1/2 mile, not trivial at all. This seems like a significant point and is not commented on in the report. This could easily explain why he lined up on the wrong runway-he flew what was for him a “normal” downwind [although too close-in], rolled into a “normal” turn to enter left base and right around to final, so of course the runway in front of him was 30L. BTW, the controller not only initially cleared them to land on 30L, with acknowledgment, he queried them again shortly before the collision and the wife replied emphatically “Cleared to land 30L”, so I do not buy the “They were familiar with the airport and would therefore be unlikely to mistake 30R for 30L” language from the NTSB.
Likewise, his speed on pattern entry and on the downwind was high as in 140-160 knots, no problem at all slowing down in a JetProp but in general it is not a good idea to come blasting into the traffic pattern at a busy airport with lots of flight training and lots of slower aircraft operating on parallel runways, among other things this did not do wonders for his radius of turn. On all of the prior flights I examined this was also typical, he would routinely fly downwind at this speed and really would not slow down to 85-90 knots until short final. Speed is life-but not when you are trying to see and avoid.
Although not germane to the proximal cause of the accident, If the gentleman in the left seat was indeed PIC, he was doing so in violation of the FAR’s. The flight from Idaho to VGT took place in the low to mid 20’s, or in other words above the altitude allowed under Basic Med, plus per the report he was not eligible for Basic Med anyway due to his prosthetic heart valve and failure to obtain a waiver from the FAA. True, his wife could have been functioning as PIC but based upon our conversation with her, and her subsequent log entries, this seems unlikely. This speaks more to pilot attitude than anything else but is still concerning.