June 2013
In general the aviation community has always seen research and study of such tragedies as tools for learning to keep the rest of safe.
Twice this past month friends of mine in two separate states found themselves attending the funerals of friends of theirs who died in crashes of General Aviation aircraft. The Florida death involved a Cessna Skymaster that lost one engine and had problems with the second engine, while in Nebraska the crash of a Piper took the lives of its young pilot and his friend when the PA-28 struck power wires shortly after takeoff.
These occurrences are awful tragedies for the families and friends of the dead. Having lost two friends myself to bad things happening to airplanes—one a former flight instructor of mine—I am no stranger to the emotional and psychological effect of such deaths.
I remember twice living through wondering whether I should ever fly again since these two friends of mine—both much more accomplished pilots than I ever will be—had lost their lives while flying. Each time I eventually got back in the air, mostly because I thought that is what they would have wanted.
I don’t know what happened in the Florida and Nebraska crashes; the FAA and the NTSB are still investigating and their conclusions are months away. And I want to state that nothing you read here is intended to offer any opinion about what happened in those crashes or about the pilots involved.
But I do know that in general the aviation community has always seen research and study of such tragedies as tools for learning to keep the rest of safe.
I remember poring over the official reports of the crashes that took the lives of my friends for some understanding of what might have happened and for some sort of healing. Both of them died resulting from maintenance-related issues.
In one crash a fuel selector valve that was not reinstalled after a cockpit refurbishment led to an engine-out even though secondary tanks were full, and the subsequent dead-stick landing attempt ended in power lines when my friend tried to avoid a school in his landing path.
In the other crash a rudder pedal modification apparently failed, leaving my friend no way to recover from an aerobatic maneuver she was flying.
Even with expert maintenance mistakes can happen, and errors occur. The most thorough preflight, even more assiduously carried out by a pilot because she knows her craft has just come out of the shop, may miss revealing an accident hidden and waiting to happen.
It has long been my habit, and I know it is also the habit among many fliers of my acquaintance, to read NTSB accident reports because we believe in the hope that something may be learned from what happens to others. I still think that is true when we think about each individual incident.
However, learning of the deaths of these pilot friends-of-friends, and as a result being reminded of the deaths of my two pilot friends, has caused me to wonder whether pilots in the aggregate are learning from these individual tragedies.
The statistics say that more than 75 percent of the events that lead to crashes are defined as pilot error. Simply put that really means that we, as pilots, made some kind of mistake that resulted in bad things happening. Those percentages, despite the small statistical movements in General Aviation accident rates over the years, remain mostly constant—meaning the same things get us in trouble or kill us year after year.
Think about your own decision making as you look at a list of poor pilot choices, and remember that hope is not a strategy for safe aviating.
Weather, also known as VFR flight into IFR conditions. This sort of mistake ends in fatalities 80 percent of the time it happens. So only fly in clouds on purpose. And give some thought to what you learned about how to extricate yourself from such a situation and maybe practice it with a safety pilot or your CFI.
Ignoring that “I’M SAFE” checklist. For those who have forgotten, the checklist sands for Illness, Medication, Stress, Alcohol, Fatigue and Emotion. The acronym is a reminder to look in your own mental mirror to see if you are physically capable of flying safely.
Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT). This is flying an operational airplane into the ground, maybe due to weather (see above), or foolishness (see below).
Low-level maneuvers, sometimes called “buzzing,” also referred to as “stupid pilot tricks.” What are you doing down there near the treetops, anyway? You might have some legitimate reason, in certain types of aircraft, but remember that treetop flying leaves little time for reacting when things go wrong—so stay away from those 60-degree banks.
Inadequate preflight. You aredistracted, inattentive or just skipped the preflight inspection because you did it when you flew your plane last week. Really? Slow down, pay attention and maybe think about using a checklist. Even your owned airplane in your own secure hangar can, in the hours since you left it, suffer from insects or small animals who clog things or chew on things.
Flight planning, or the lack thereof. If your pilot friend says, “I’ve flown this trip so many times I don’t need to plan it,” don’t get in the plane. Oh, and weather changes. It is amazing—as well as a violation of federal law—that any pilot would take off without a complete and thorough plan and briefing for a flight.
Fuel, as in running out of Avgas. You learned the minimum requirements for the fuel you need aboard upon landing when you learned to fly. It is still hard to believe how many pilots seem to let their aircraft run out of fuel. Are they texting or sleeping instead of flying the airplane? Are they monitoring the gauges, the clock and/or the winds? The fact that many run out fuel just before reaching their destination leads to the conclusion that those pilots were pushing it to get somewhere. Instead, their families got that awful phone call from the sheriff.
I’ve heard and read the excuses we make for ourselves, including fuel being more expensive so that we fly less and therefore are less good at it. I don’t buy it. Flying airplanes is a joy and for most of us a purely voluntary activity that carries with it the responsibility of continued competence and self-reflection in order to not end up as an accident statistic.
Be proactive. Spend time with a CFI more often than is required. And above all remember that most of the things that can get you in trouble in an airplane are avoidable if you use your head—and you have trained for the rest. Fly safe.
More on drones
I received some reader feedback that I was too critical of drones and their inherent safety issues in my recent columns. However, I wish to point out that I never mentioned the craft flown by radio-controlled (RC) aircraft aficionados and hobbyists. Any who thought I was worried about such RC activities were mistaken. All the RC buffs I have ever met are safe and conscientious folks who would never dream of endangering anyone.
Meanwhile, on the subject of your civil liberties on drone front, my home state of Florida has become the third state to ban the use of drones by police without the due process of warrants and the safeguarding of the Fourth Amendment that we as United States citizens are guaranteed under the Constitution.
In signing the law, Florida Gov. Rick Scott said it would protect the state’s residents from “unwarranted surveillance.”
Before local or state law enforcement can use drones, Florida’s Freedom from Unwarranted Surveillance Act requires a judge to grant permission in nearly all cases, similar to the process for search warrants. The law makes exceptions in cases involving “imminent danger to life or serious damage to property” and when “credible intelligence” from the federal Department of Homeland Security points to “a high risk of a terrorist attack.”
Idaho and Virginia have passed similar laws and as I write this, the issue is being discussed in state legislatures in California, Oregon, Texas, Nebraska, Missouri, North Dakota, Montana, Maine and Oklahoma.
David Hipschman is a private pilot, a lapsed newspaper editor and retired police detective. He teaches journalism at the University of Florida, once served as the director of publications at EAA, and is the editor of the National Association of Flight Instructors’ publications. Send questions or comments to editor@www.piperflyer.com.
