Imagine hearing about two planes colliding midair but coupled with the term “no fatalities”, if that’s nothing short of a miracle then I don’t know what is. Last Wednesday two planes crashed into each other over Arapahoe County, Colorado while trying to land at a small airport. However, reports later came that there had been no causalities but how is that possible?
Well, it was because of a combination of many factors. One of them being that the bigger twin-engine Fairchild Metroliner only had the pilot on board. If there were any passengers then the situation would have been grim. What’s surprising is that the pilot didn’t even realize that the plane was almost ripped in half and only knew about one failing engine which forced to him land. In a released audio clip, the pilot said “Looks like the right engine failed, so I’m gonna continue my landing here”.
The other plane was a single-engine 2016 Cirrus SR22 was able to deploy its parachute that allowed the plane to slow down enough to land in an empty field. The parachute was part of the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System designed to slow the craft’s descent after a collision.
According to Anthony Brickhouse, an associate professor of aerospace and occupational safety, the damage to the Metroliner was in the “perfect location”. “If it was the flight deck: Bad outcome. The wings: Bad outcome. The tail: Bad outcome. It happened in the perfect place for the pilot to make it down”.
Even the Sherriff’s Deputy of Arapahoe County, John Bartmann, was amazed by the situation. He said that “Every one of these pilots needs to go buy a lottery ticket right now. I don’t remember anything like this — especially everybody walking away. I mean that’s the amazing part of this”.
It’s unclear why the two planes crashed into each other in the first and it was a miracle that everyone survived. The National Transportation Safety Board currently has four people investigating the matter. According to lead investigator John Brannen, “We are working to understand how and why these planes collided. It is so fortunate that no one was injured in this collision”.
Both pilots have already been interviewed and the NTSB says that it will publish a preliminary report in the next two weeks. But it expects the entire investigation to take 12 to 18 months.
It’s great that no was seriously injured. I need this kind of luck in my life.