You may have read the article in the March edition of Light Aviation that described our analysis of aircraft collisions over the last 37 years. That article focussed on the collision risk faced by light aircraft pilots and for reasons of space and simplicity did not go into any great detail about the other airspace users and the collision risk they face which is different.
This page links to the original documents that set out our research and to papers we wrote to the CAA (Airspace Policy). There you can see what collisions mean to military jets and turboprops, to gliders and to glider tugs.
These documents have been through several iterations as we have discovered more about some collision events and certain aircraft have been reclassified, for example a motor glider moved from “glider” to “aircraft”. As a result some of the numbers have changed but the outcomes remain the same and some are reinforced.
When looking at the numbers please take care to note where we have referred to individual aircraft accidents and where we have referred to collisions. We used the former so we could understand the factors effecting 2 different classes of flying machine each having their own accident but forming one collision.
Bear in mind that we did the work originally to understand the risks in Class G airspace so we could engage effectively with the CAA who are working on the future rules for Class G airspace.
Please click on the links below for:
Our original paper describing collisions over the last 37 years
The annex to that with the collisions data set out in 2 worksheets
Appendix 1 & Appendix 2 showing the distribution of collisions away from the vicinity of airfields or flying sites