BE36 pilot reports confusion at the days finish during a multi-day cross country air race resulted i...

Attributes
ACN	896231
Time
Date	201006
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Bonanza 36
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Descent
Route In Use	Visual Approach
Flight Plan	VFR
Aircraft 2
Make Model Name	Bonanza 33
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Descent
Route In Use	Visual Approach
Person 1
Function	Pilot Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Commercial Flight Crew Instrument Flight Crew Multiengine
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 45 Flight Crew Total 4500 Flight Crew Type 75
Events
Anomaly	ATC Issue All Types Conflict NMAC
Miss Distance	Horizontal 200 Vertical 0

Narrative:

We were in a cross country air race with many other planes. We departed and flew at 3;500 ft talking continuously with other planes. We knew about 20 NM out that we may have to do a dual fly-by at the days' finish line. The reporting points were 10 miles and 5 miles; which both planes did. We were asked to do a 2 mile radio call; started our fly-by at 300 AGL flying at approximately 210 KTS. We were asked to abort fly-by midfield to the right; which we did; and began a climb to pattern altitude flying towards the east. Controller then told us to fly north then east again cleared us for landing runway 18. Then he confused another plane for landing wrong runway. The other in this incident was given similar instructions; mixing up racer tail numbers. We were then instructed to land on runway 18. As we were going in downwind; we encountered the other racer at about 1;500 ft for us and 1;500 ft on the other racer. Clearance 200 ft lateral. We dove down and they continued at their altitude. We missed hitting each other and the controller never saw it. We heard it was a training of an older controller coming back to work. We really needed experienced ATC. We knew the waiver procedure; but the controller didn't know what to do!

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: BE36 pilot reports confusion at the days finish during a multi-day cross country air race resulted in a head on NMAC in the VFR traffic pattern.

Narrative: We were in a cross country air race with many other planes. We departed and flew at 3;500 FT talking continuously with other planes. We knew about 20 NM out that we may have to do a dual fly-by at the days' finish line. The reporting points were 10 miles and 5 miles; which both planes did. We were asked to do a 2 mile radio call; started our fly-by at 300 AGL flying at approximately 210 KTS. We were asked to abort fly-by midfield to the right; which we did; and began a climb to pattern altitude flying towards the east. Controller then told us to fly north then east again cleared us for landing Runway 18. Then he confused another plane for landing wrong runway. The other in this incident was given similar instructions; mixing up racer tail numbers. We were then instructed to land on Runway 18. As we were going in downwind; we encountered the other racer at about 1;500 FT for us and 1;500 FT on the other racer. Clearance 200 FT lateral. We dove down and they continued at their altitude. We missed hitting each other and the Controller never saw it. We heard it was a training of an older controller coming back to work. We really needed experienced ATC. We knew the waiver procedure; but the Controller didn't know what to do!

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

BE36 pilot reports confusion at the days finish during a multi-day cross country air race resulted in a head on near midair collision in the VFR traffic pattern.