This is an excerpt from a report made to the Aviation Safety Reporting System. The narrative is written by the pilot, rather than FAA or NTSB officials. To maintain anonymity, many details, such as aircraft model or airport, are often scrubbed from the reports.
I was flying skydivers in a Cessna 182 just before sunset. We check in with Approach as soon as we can after each departure from ZZZ every time.
On my last jump run of the night, I got word from a CRJ 900 that they got a Resolution Advisory between our aircraft.
In this case, I was climbing and ready to turn towards ZZZ for my jump run to drop my skydivers over the airpark. The landing traffic was turning back for what I believe was a visual approach to ZZZ1.
Unfortunately, ZZZ is located right next to the approach course for Runway XX at ZZZ1. I usually stay as far south below the approach path as possible, as requested by the controllers, but that did not help in this case.
ZZZ Approach ordered me to hold my jumpers until the CRJ passed. As requested, I held my jumpers in the plane and then saw the CRJ fly directly below us and telling ZZZ Approach “We got an RA!” from how close we were.
Even my skydivers said they had not seen a plane that close from the air before. I would estimate their aircraft was about 300-600 feet below my aircraft.
In this case, I do not know what could have led to this happening other than possibly bad timing or just bad location for skydiving operations.
The only things that I could say could be improved would be that Approach could tell arriving traffic to circle further way from the airport to go around skydiving operations or have arriving traffic come in from the north side of the airport and make a right turn south to stay north of skydiving operations.
Primary Problem: Procedure
ACN: 2185807
When you click on the link it will take you to the ASRS Online Database. Click on Report Number and put the ACN in the search box, then click Search. On that page, click on “view only the 1 most recent report.”
Maybe file a NOTAM for the jump operations so that all are aware? Getting the parachute on the charts marking where you are operating?
Saw this same kind of thing where the jump school did not look at the airspace leading into CLE on the south east side of Cleveland just east of Wadsworth Muni, and were doing drops in the approach corridor that was well marked on the VFR charts. This was back in the early 2000s.
Just say’n’.