It was supposed to be a straightforward round trip, the kind of flight I often do to keep my instrument currency sharp.
This solo hop was from Brisbane’s Archerfield to Kingaroy in a Cirrus SR22, then back home. The plan was simple – file IFR, shoot an RNP approach, tick the boxes for recency and enjoy a couple of hours in the air.
The plan was to depart Archerfield visually, pick up the clearance into Charlie airspace with Brisbane Centre, then track north. Nothing unusual about it – standard airwork, smooth air and CAVOK conditions for most of the trip.
The outbound leg was uneventful. I settled into cruise, monitoring Centre, crosschecking the avionics and running through the mental rehearsal of the RNP approach to runway 32 at Kingaroy. Winds were calm and skies clear. I contacted Centre for descent as I neared the area and, with no other traffic reported, tuned the CTAF.
That’s when things began to unravel. About 15 miles out, I made my first call.
Kingaroy traffic, Cirrus Zulu Tango Quebec, one five miles south-east, conducting RNP approach runway 34, Kingaroy.
No response. Silence. A good sign, I thought. I had the place to myself.
The approach continued smoothly. The Garmin screens gave me the precision I’ve come to trust and I focused mostly inside the cockpit, scanning between instruments and the picture outside. On long final, I gave another call, announcing the approach and the runway. Still nothing from anyone else. With calm winds and no aircraft reporting, I felt confident I had the circuit to myself.
And then it happened!
Just as I transitioned from instruments to outside, scanning down the runway and mentally running through the missed approach point, a flash of movement caught my eye. To my left – climbing, nose high – an aircraft rocketed off the grass strip that runs parallel to the sealed runway.
My heart stopped! The aircraft was directly ahead and slightly offset, climbing towards me! The separation was frighteningly close – maybe 100 metres, maybe less! At that speed and geometry, it was closer than I had ever been to another aircraft while airborne. My immediate thought was to hope it would not turn left towards me.
I instinctively nosed the Cirrus down and banked right, calling out urgently on the CTAF to alert the other aircraft.
No response. Not a word. I don’t know if the other pilot was on the wrong frequency, his radio was out or he simply didn’t have one. Since he was in a nose-high climb, maybe he just didn’t see me.
I shoved the throttle forward, pitched up into a max-rate climb and flew the missed approach. I made another hasty broadcast, announcing an immediate departure from the area.
My eyes darted across the sky, desperate to reacquire the traffic but it was gone.
The silence was almost as unnerving as the near miss itself. No radio calls before, during or after. No trace of the aircraft on ADS-B, confirming my suspicion: no transponder, no surveillance, no visibility to ATC. To Brisbane Centre, the sky around Kingaroy was empty.
But I knew otherwise.
Once clear of the area and with my breathing under control again, I checked everything – radios, frequencies, avionics. Had I made a mistake? Had I somehow fat-fingered the wrong CTAF? No, everything was correct. The only explanation was that the other pilot either hadn’t transmitted, hadn’t been equipped or hadn’t cared.
The irony hit me hard. I’ve always worried about encounters like this during IMC or night operations, where traffic is harder to spot and margins are tighter. Yet here it was broad daylight, crystal clear skies, perfect visibility – and I’d nearly collided with another aircraft.
Heading back to Archerfield, I replayed the sequence again and again. What could I have done differently? My procedures were sound. I’d made the right calls, flown the correct approach, scanned outside when required. Perhaps I could have kept a stronger visual lookout on the final approach, but realistically, the odds of catching a small aircraft on a collision course was hopefully needle-in-a-haystack stuff.
What unsettled me most was the other pilot’s absence from the frequency. No calls, no reply, no transponder. In a world where ADS-B is increasingly universal, it’s easy to forget that not everyone is visible electronically. And in CTAF environments, that reliance on pilot discipline is both the system’s strength and its Achilles’ heel.
As I taxied back in at Archerfield later that day, the contrast hit me. What began as a textbook IFR recency flight had almost turned into a collision, on a clear, sunny afternoon at a quiet country aerodrome. Flying is like that: hours of calm, routine operations, punctuated by seconds that matter more than all the rest. On that approach into Kingaroy, I was reminded just how quickly those seconds can arrive.
Lessons learnt:
- rely on active see-and-avoid when in VMC and scan widely across both runways and any grass strips for aircraft that may not make radio calls
- make clear CTAF calls at the key points in your approach, so other pilots know where you are and what you plan to do
- expect aircraft without radios or transponders in non-controlled areas and be ready to turn or go around when you see unexpected traffic.
Close calls are contributed by readers like you. They are personal accounts of individual experiences and are not corroborated by CASA. We publish close calls so others can learn from their stories and spark discussions about safety. These stories should not be used to identify individuals or operators.
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