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Contact photographer Barry Shipley
What: Cargojet Boeing 757-200 en route from Ottawa to Hamilton
Where: Hamilton
When: Mar 25th 2010
Why: While on approach to Hamilton, a small privately owned Cessna turned into the Boeing’s path (reducing the distance between the two to 1.5nm horizontally and 200 feet vertically). The Cessna—on approach to the wrong runway—was corrected by ATC; and the Boeing landed safely.
The Cessna pilot acknowledged error on his runway approach.
This situation brings to mind two recent collisions- the March 20 Florida collision between a Piper and an experimental plane, and the February 6 Cirrus-Piper collision in Colorado. The circumstances of the collisions are entirely different but I should poitn out that neither of those collisions occurred under the direct eye of ATC. Perhaps there are extra kudos due to Air Traffic Control (or perhaps the Boeing pilot? whoever’s quick eye caught and cured the impending crisis) for the accident that did not happen.
It would be interesting to find out if the error is fatigue related, or if there were some other hidden cause. Anytime a collision is averted is a good thing.
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