SR-20 pilot reported an NMAC event during final approach to a non-towered airport. All required radio position reports were completed with no traffic responses received. On final; fight crew made visual contact with an opposite direction departure and executed an evasive maneuver.
Synopsis
SR-20 pilot reported an NMAC event during final approach to a non-towered airport. All required radio position reports were completed with no traffic responses received. On final; fight crew made visual contact with an opposite direction departure and executed an evasive maneuver.
Narrative
I was on an Instrument flight with my instructor when we decided to fly the RNAV XX at ZZZ which is an uncontrolled airport. My instructor was making final calls for runway XX on the CTAF while we were descending towards the runway; we hear no response so we continue with our descent. On final my instructor tells me to take off my foggles and go visual; at that point he asks me if what he's seeing on the runway is another plane or not. I looked and sure enough it was coming straight for us departing on runway YY. We were at around 1300 ft. when we noticed and decided to bank right where we missed him by what I would assume was less than 200 ft.[No one] was injured in this but my instructor and I were pretty shaken up. I think this problem arose from the lack of communication from the departing aircraft. If they had said their intentions then we would have known they were departing and would have made proper actions to get very clear out of their way. I also believe that it was in part that the AWOS was reading calm winds. This ends up making it so that the runway does not have a predominant headwind causing pilots to just 'pick a runway'. These I believe are very dangerous and could result; and have resulted in accidents before.I think one way to mitigate this would be to have something in the chart supplements; or making a regulation that forces a directional runway to be used at a non-towered airport when winds are reading calm which makes it so everyone is using the same direction (like what we do with VFR magnetic heading altitudes). Or I believe that you should have to use comms while at non-towered airports as well. I believe that these being implemented would make aviation much safer and I wouldn't have to worry about someone crashing head on into me at my local non-towered airport.
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.