SR20
Flight Crew Flight Instructor; Flight Crew Commercial; Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Multiengine
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 50; Flight Crew Total 280; Flight Crew Type 180
Time Pressure; Workload; Situational Awareness; Distraction
Conflict NMAC
Flight Crew Took Evasive Action
Human Factors; Aircraft
While maneuvering to enter the Battle Creek Class D Airspace; we had a near-miss with traffic inbound on a straight-in approach. We were transitioning around the airport to enter the airspace in compliance with standard procedures for training at BTL. Before the incident; I was teaching the student how to use the autopilot. I looked up and saw another aircraft at our 10 o'clock and less than 1 mile; and converging. I immediately took controls and put the aircraft in a dive to avoid the traffic; and we missed by about 150 FT vertically. Without the deviation; we likely would have collided. The other traffic did not appear to see us; as they did not appear to take any evasive action. The near-miss could most likely be attributed to our distraction with the autopilot; and a lack of proper visual scan for traffic. We also have Skywatch TCAS installed; but the traffic never appeared on the display and no alerts were displayed or played. The incident also revealed complacency related to relying on the TCAS to find traffic; rather than the flight crew.
An SR20 Instructor took evasive action to miss another aircraft by 150 FT while flying at 2;500 FT near BTL Class D Airspace.