Federal Aviation Regulation Ninety-One Point One Thirteen, Right of Way, and Who Yields to Whom When Two Airplanes Want the Same Piece of Sky

Federal Aviation Regulation 91.113 governs who has the right of way when two aircraft want the same piece of sky. The rules aren’t about who “wins” - they’re a system for how not to collide. The core principle is see and avoid: every pilot must watch for and give way to other aircraft, and having the right of way never obligates you to hold course into a collision.

Most of the time, in most U.S. airspace, the only thing separating you from another airplane is your own eyes. No controller, no computer - just you. FAR 91.113 is the framework that keeps that arrangement safe, and it’s a favorite on the private pilot checkride.

What does “see and avoid” actually mean?

The regulation opens with a line many pilots skim past: regardless of whether you’re operating under IFR or VFR, each person operating an aircraft must maintain vigilance so as to see and avoid other aircraft.

That’s the foundation. Everything else in the rule is just the tie-breaker for when see-and-avoid gets complicated.

The very next line says that when a rule gives another aircraft the right of way, you must give way and may not pass over, under, or ahead of it unless you are well clear. “Well clear” is bigger than you think when two aircraft are closing at a combined 200-plus knots. Don’t cut across the nose of the airplane with priority just because you technically slid behind it.

Here’s what surprises students: the aircraft with the right of way is not off the hook. See and avoid applies to everyone. If you have priority and watch another airplane fly straight into you while you do nothing, the regulation gave you priority - it did not give you permission to stop flying the airplane.

Who has the right of way in an emergency?

This one is short and absolute. An aircraft in distress has the right of way over all other air traffic. A declared emergency, a dead engine, a fire on board - that aircraft owns the airspace, the runway, and whatever else it needs. Everyone else gets out of the way.

Who yields when two aircraft converge?

Picture two airplanes at the same altitude coming together from an angle - not head-on, not one chasing the other, just converging like two cars at an intersection with no stop sign.

The rule: the aircraft to the other’s right has the right of way.

Make it a reflex. If another airplane is off your right and converging, it wins - you give way. If the traffic is off your left, you have the right of way, but you keep watching it anyway. It’s the same instinct as a four-way stop: the airplane on the right goes first. When two airplanes converge, you won’t have time to look it up.

What if the two converging aircraft are different types?

When converging aircraft are of different categories, the right-of-way order flips to a pecking order based on who is least able to get out of the way. From most right of way to least:

1. Balloon - has the right of way over everything. A balloon goes where the wind goes and cannot maneuver to save itself.
2. Glider - right of way over everything except a balloon. No engine, limited options, precious altitude.
3. Airship - a blimp or dirigible; slow, ponderous, hard to move quickly.
4. Airplane, rotorcraft, and powered-lift - that’s us. The engine-driven, maneuverable machines have the least right of way, precisely because we have the most ability to get out of everyone else’s way.

If you ever blank on the order, don’t memorize the list - ask who is least able to maneuver. That aircraft goes first. That reasoning gets the right answer under pressure, and it’s what the examiner wants to hear.

One important exception: an aircraft towing or refueling other aircraft has the right of way over all other engine-driven aircraft. A tow plane dragging a glider up on a rope isn’t nimble and has someone tied to its tail. Give it room.

What do you do in a head-on situation?

Two airplanes approaching nose to nose at roughly the same altitude is one of the most dangerous geometries in aviation. The closure rate is enormous, and cruelly, an airplane pointed straight at you barely moves in your windscreen - it sits in one spot and grows. There’s no relative motion right up until it’s very big and very close.

The rule is clean and symmetric: each aircraft must alter course to the right. Nobody has the right of way in a head-on. You turn right, the other pilot turns right, and you slide past each other left wingtip to left wingtip with room to spare.

The rule only works because everyone does the same thing. Head-on, turn right - never left. If you go one way and the other pilot guesses the other, you’ve just closed the gap you were trying to open.

How do you overtake another aircraft?

You’re the faster airplane coming up behind a slower one - say a Bonanza running down a Cessna 172 on the airway. The aircraft being overtaken has the right of way. It gets to keep doing what it’s doing. You, the overtaking aircraft, must alter course to the right to pass and stay well clear while you do it.

Why the right again? Because the airplane in front can’t see you - there’s a fuselage, a tail, and a whole airplane between the pilot’s eyes and you. The entire burden falls on you, the one who can see the situation, to go around predictably, on the right, with room. Overtaking: pass on the right.

Who has the right of way in the traffic pattern?

Most collisions happen near airports, and there’s a special rule that catches people. When approaching an airport to land, aircraft at a lower altitude have the right of way. The airplane below you - closer to the ground, closer to committing to the runway - has priority.

But the regulation says in the same breath that you cannot use this rule to cut in front of an aircraft on final approach or to overtake it. You can’t dive below the airplane on downwind, claim you’re lower, and squeeze onto the runway ahead of it. That’s not right of way - that’s dangerous, and it’s exactly the kind of move that turns a base-to-final turn into a headline.

Picture a busy nontowered field on a Saturday: you’re on downwind, an airplane is on a low straight-in final already committed, a helicopter is working the area, and someone just called a two-mile 45-degree entry. FAR 91.113 is the referee for all of it. The lower airplane on final gets the runway. You don’t cut in. Everyone keeps using see and avoid, keeps talking on the radio, and keeps giving way to whoever has the fewest options.

The most important habit of all

Having the right of way has never bent a single piece of aluminum back into shape. If it’s close, if it’s ambiguous, if your gut tightens up - give way, turn right, go around. You can sort out who was technically correct later, on the ground, both of you still breathing. Be the pilot who yielded and lived, not the one who was right and didn’t.

You can read the rule yourself as FAR 91.113, and the see-and-avoid language echoes through the Airman Certification Standards under collision avoidance.

Key Takeaways

• See and avoid is the master rule - everything else is a tie-breaker. Keep your eyes outside and watch for the airplane that isn’t moving in your windscreen; that’s the one on a collision course.
• Converging: the aircraft on the right wins. For different categories, whoever can maneuver least goes first - balloon, glider, airship, then powered aircraft.
• Head-on: everyone turns right. Both aircraft alter course right and pass left-to-left.
• Overtaking: pass on the right and stay well clear, because the slower aircraft can’t see you.
• In the pattern, the lower aircraft has the right of way - but never cut in on someone already on final.