A Dear mid — Air…or Two

Flying Safety, August, 2001 by Eric Braganca

Of all nights to have a problem, it had to be on my checkride.

I'm an MH-53J instructor pilot at the formal schoolhouse at Kirtland AFB NM, and on this night I had a crew of ten, which included two student pilots (one in the pilot's--right--seat next to me and one in back waiting to finish a checkride later that evening), a flight engineer student, an aerial gunner student, my evaluator pilot in the cabin, and five instructor/evaluator enlisted crewmembers. Our five-hour mission was rather complex--with low-level formation, aerial refueling from a C-130, aerial gunnery, and then terrain-following/avoidance radar low-level flying and self-contained coupler approaches to round out the night, all using night vision goggles (NVGs). With 3500 hours of helicopter time, and about 1000 hours on NVGs under my belt, this wouldn't be that hard. I had seven years of flying MH-53s, and I'd done this kind of profile many times.

My show time was approximately 1400L for a 1600L crew brief. The early arrival let m review the weather, NOTAMs, etc., before sitting down with the students to review the mission plan for the night. Pilot prebrief and crew brief went well. After the crew brief, I spent additional time with the student pilots, while the enlisted crewmembers stepped to the flightline to preflight the aircraft and .50 cal and 7.62 mm miniguns.

Aircraft run-up was uneventful. Because of a leak check on the main transmission, we took off about 12 minutes late. It was now after 1900L--approximately 30 minutes after sunset. Our lead had taken off on time and would be waiting in the remote landing zone for us to maximize his students' training.

Kirtland AFB is in Class C and D air-space controlled by the FAA and shared with a moderate-to-high volume of civilian (mostly airline) traffic. On this night, Tower delayed our takeoff to allow an airliner to land and a Cessna, who'd been waiting longer than us, to take off. We finally received clearance and the student pilot started our takeoff. As helicopters, we avoid the flow of fixed-wing traffic, so our departure is designed to go 90 degrees to the major runway. We flew out on a heading of 170 degrees. As we cleared the airfield boundary, I took the controls to allow the student pilot to get out the map and focus on his mission. Tower called the Cessna at about two miles and 11 o'clock and authorized a frequency change if we had that traffic in sight. The Cessna had just taken off from the main runway (number 8) and appeared to be on a downwind departure-almost perpendicular to our path. We would be able to climb fast enough to go almost directly over him. I rogered Tower, calling the Cessna traffic i n-sight, and switched to Departure Control.

When I checked in with Departure, they also asked if I had the Cessna in sight. I confirmed that I did, and flew almost directly over the Cessna, guessing we were 500 feet over him as we passed. This felt comfortable since I had seen him for a minute or so and he was flying a steady course and altitude. As part of our standard crew coordination, I alerted the right scanner (an evaluator flight engineer) that the Cessna was passing left-to-right and that he should see the traffic in a second. The right scanner tallied the aircraft and said it looked like he was heading away from us. We leveled off at 6500 feet MSL (about 2000 feet AGL), completed our gear-up after takeoff checklist, and made some minor intercom calls about the navigation system. I kept the intercom traffic light because too much crew talking can cause us to miss radio calls in a congested radar environment. Many student pilots like to try to accomplish power checks, combat ingress checks, and the like as early as possible, but tonight my stud ents were doing a good job of focusing on the job at hand--exiting the Class C airspace.

We continued southbound, following our VFR helicopter departure to a large dry riverbed where we made a right 90 degree turn. This turn would take us west across the Rio Grande and under the approach path for Runway 3 (which was also active for landing traffic that night). As we approached the river--where we normally change frequencies off approach and descend low-level--I heard a Cessna call sign ask Departure if he was supposed to fly underneath the helicopter. I instinctively swung my head right to look out the pilot's cockpit window just in time to see a large black spot pass underneath us with a red and green light defining the boundaries of the blackness--the Cessna! The right scanner called out the traffic at the same time. It was hard to tell at night, but it appeared that the Cessna had passed within 200 feet of us vertically. We started talking about where he came from and how we'd lost him in the numerous city lights of Albuquerque, when my aerial gunner student on the ramp called out a large air craft descending directly upon us from 6 o'clock. I had just enough time to ask how close he was before the instructor aerial gunner called "Break left and descend!" From 2000 feet AGL, we hit the deck fast and leveled out at 200 feet AOL, now past the Rio Grande and over the dark deserts of New Mexico.