The “inherent limitations of the see-and-avoid concept” by which pilots are expected to look out for other aircraft on conflicting flight paths was one of the probable causes of the fatal 2019 midair collision of two air tour airplanes in Alaska, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) says.
In a late-April decision, the NTSB said a second probable cause was the lack of any warning from the float-airplanes’ traffic display systems “while operating in a geographic area with a high concentration of air tour activity.”
Six people were killed in the May 13, 2019, collision of a de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver and a de Havilland DHC-3 Otter about 8 mi (13 km) northeast of Ketchikan. Both airplanes were operated under U.S. Federal Aviation Regulations Part 135, which governs charter and on-demand flights, and both had completed air tours of the Misty Fjords National Monument and were returning, in visual meteorological conditions, to their bases at the Ketch…
