When I was a student pilot, I had 1 or 2 close calls with mid air collision. I’m telling these stories to educate viewers on how simply errors can occur when you’re flying. A plane crash usually results from a chain of events.
The first close call I had as a pilot was when I was on my first solo cross country flight from French valley back to el monte airport. On my way back to my home airport, about 2 miles away, I almost collided with another aircraft who was just taking off on the south side of the runaway.
The second close call happened when me and my instructor were on a short flight from el monte to bracket, a neighboring airport. Right about 3-4 miles west of the airport, we saw another aircraft, a diamondstar take off from the runway and aimed directly at us. We had to dip the airplane down to avoid that collision.
These are the lessons learned.
1. Plan your trip before ever leaving the ground. Your flight plan should include NOTAMS and knowing the traffic pattern of your home and destination airports.
2. Call in air traffic sooner when you’re coming in to land
3. Pay attention always especially if you’re a VFR Pilot. Flying on a bright and clear day can give a false sense of absolute safety because you think you can see everything. Sadly most midair collisions happen on clear sky days.
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