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Comment by superfrank | Hacker News Reader

Do airplanes regularly collide where it doesn't end in death? I can't remember many midair collisions where the planes continued flying with minor damage. I see where you're coming from asking for a warning, but I also feel like people should just assume airplane collision = death.

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While you are mostly correct there have been some infamous ones such as the 1983 Negev incident where an F-15 and A-4 Skyhawk collided and the F-15 landed without a wing https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/that-time-an-f-15-landed-withou...

or that time a couple of F/A-18 Hornets collided and both managed to land with substantial damage https://theaviationgeekclub.com/u-s-naval-aviator-explains-h...

Nothing in the link description said it was mid-air.

My first thought on reading was it was on the ground, like in "East Midlands Airport: Taxiing planes collide in morning fog" at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leicestershire-48104527 or "Two planes collide at Lagos International Airport" at https://dailypost.ng/2020/07/30/two-planes-collide-at-lagos-... . Both during taxiing.

I suspect most airplane collisions occur on the ground, but that's a wild-ass guess.

Probably rare but it happens.

I remember this was pretty big news when it happened:

https://nypost.com/2021/05/13/two-planes-collide-midair-in-c...

Edit: above link reports on midair collision of a Cirrus SR22 and a Swearingen Metroliner in May 2021.

B-17s collided and died in WW2 a lot because of the close formations, often in poor visibility.

Often enough that it isn't good practice to assume one outcome or the other.

Why?

If something happens X happens 90% of the time and Y happens 10% of the time, I think it's safe to assume X, especially where there's little downside to a false positive.

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