| My main point is that there are likely multiple factors and a headline titled “Can the ‘Right Stuff’ Become the Wrong Stuff?” with speculation and hand picked comments doesn’t help the investigation or preventing accidents in the future. It does drive traffic and revenue for James Fallows and the Atlantic though. If you fly GA, I’d recommend you know where nearby airports are (and thirty miles isn’t that far for jets), where instrument approaches are, where MOAs are, where low level routes are, etc. I’d also recommend using flight following. You can say that these things aren’t your responsibility, but I don’t think that’s a good attitude. Also, I’m not sure how you interpret that the Cesna was rear ended. Reading the NTSB report it sounds like the Cesna was heading southeast (135) and climbing and the F-16 was heading west (265) and turning south (180). Seems closer to head-on or perpendicular with the Cesna climbing into the F-16’s altitude and the F-16 in a belly up turn with no visibility. Regarding the Tacan, I don’t see any mention that the F-16 was below altitude or off course. So just because you wouldn’t expect a plane there, doesn’t mean that one won’t be there. Again, maybe this is a bad Tacan with nearby civilian airfields and should be axed, but it doesn’t seem any rules were broken. We don’t know the results of the investigation, yet all the blame is being put on the F-16 driver. It sounds like small failures from all involved resulted in a tragic outcome. There may be lessons learned from this incident that can help prevent another in the future, but placing blame without the facts and pointing fingers in the media isn’t how we figure them out. |