Skyhawk 172/Cutlass 172
Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Commercial; Flight Crew Flight Instructor
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 30; Flight Crew Total 632; Flight Crew Type 230
Confusion; Communication Breakdown; Situational Awareness
Conflict NMAC; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General None Reported / Taken
Human Factors
While approaching Traffic Pattern we stated over CTAF (Common Traffic Advisory Frequency) that we would overfly the airport and join the left downwind. While joining the left downwind; we heard our call sign over the radio from another aircraft apparently in the pattern asking why we cut them off.... I had no visual of the other aircraft nor did I hear on the radio another aircraft was in the pattern. I asked the other aircraft to state his position and he stated we just flew over them. As we were at pattern altitude; if we flew over them I suspect they may have been lower than TPA (Traffic Pattern Altitude). I asked their intentions and they stated they would follow us in for landing. We landed without incident and they followed us in without apparent incident as well. We were monitoring and communicating our intentions from 20 miles out. I do not recall hearing this other aircrafts call sign or that they were in the pattern. There were multiple aircraft up from multiple airports communicating on this shared CTAF freq. It is possible I missed the call; the other aircraft was stepped on or he failed to make a proper call. Regardless; this was a near miss in my opinion and I used this as a training opportunity with my student to reinforce proper radio calls as well as what can potentially happen in the pattern at an uncontrolled airport.
C172 flight instructor reported a near miss with another aircraft in the airport traffic pattern.