NASA · Aviation Safety Reporting System
PA-28 flight Instructor with student reported the Tower Controller issued them a heading in the traffic pattern that could have put them on a collision course with another aircraft.
What is ASRS?
The Aviation Safety Reporting System is NASA's voluntary, confidential, non- punitive incident-reporting system, established 1976. Pilots, controllers, dispatchers, and maintenance technicians file reports describing safety- relevant events. NASA de-identifies every report before adding it to the public database. Reports are not investigated by NASA, the FAA, or the NTSB — they represent the reporter's perspective.
Pilot narrative
Verbatim from the de-identified NASA record. First-person account by the
reporter. NASA strips identifying details (names, company, specific time);
anonymization placeholders are ZZZ,
X, Y.
At ZZZ the tower instructed Aircraft X in front of a C150 on final. As PIC I determined that this instruction would have put us on a collision course with the aircraft on final. After listening to the ATC audio and reviewing the ADSB data I am still of the opinion that this would have caused undue hazard to the safety of our flight. I understand that mistakes do happen on ATC's part.
Analyst callback
ASRS analysts occasionally follow up with reporters by phone. These are the paraphrased additional notes from those conversations.
Reporter stated that they did not comply with the ATC issued heading because it would have caused a collision with the other traffic.
NASA classification — Anomalies
- ATC Issue
- Conflict
- Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural
NASA classification — Assessments
- Contributing Factors / Situations
- Human Factors · Procedure
- Primary Problem
- Procedure
ASRS reports are voluntarily submitted, de-identified by NASA, and represent the reporter's perspective. The presence of reports on a topic cannot be used to infer prevalence in the National Airspace System. The authoritative source is the NASA ASRS Database Online at asrs.arc.nasa.gov ↗.