August 2012
Six years ago, I opened my column with these words:
When I started flying actively about 10 years ago, I was warned that if I stuck with it, eventually I’d have to face the loss of a friend in an airplane crash.
Sad to say, it has happened again. What gives me pause is that this makes the fourth time in a little less than 10 years that a pilot with whom I’ve had a personal connection lost his life in an airplane crash.
The first was Steve Meissel, a fellow volunteer pilot with Liga International (“The Flying Doctors of Mercy”). Steve and three passengers collided with high terrain shortly after departure from Bishop, Calif. (KBIH) in 2003.
Three years later, I was told that Dave Mesenhimer, a co-owner of my flight school, was dead. He had been doing pattern work in an experimental aircraft when one of the wings came off.
Four years after that, we lost Chuck Swanson, a local pilot. Sadly, he died in the most inexplicable of these four accidents. For reasons that were never fully explained, his airplane began orbiting an area in the foothills of the Sierras near Angels Camp, Calif. and continued to circle until it ran out of gas and crashed.
I don’t know for certain whether I ever met John Slater, but my wife Kate knew him. He had an excellent reputation as a reliable and very safe pilot. This past June, he took off from El Fuerte, Mexico on what should have been a 20-minute flight to a dirt strip at El Carizzo, where Liga runs a clinic.
He never made it. His airplane wound up inverted in a nearby river. The only thing known for sure about that accident is that he contacted power lines. (There are eyewitness reports that suggest he may have been having engine trouble.)
What can be learned from these losses? There’s no obvious pattern: Controlled flight into terrain, a wing falling off, something that incapacitated the pilot, and in the last case, unknown factors (possibly including engine problems) that put an airplane too low in the wrong place at the wrong time.
When I restarted flying lessons 16 years ago (after a 20-year hiatus), my wife gave permission, provided I agreed not to take any unnecessary risks. I asked my flight instructor what risks I should be concerned about, and he told me the obvious ones (keep the airspeed above stall, stay coordinated, and stay current) and referred me to the AOPA Air Safety Institute (ASI).
From ASI, I learned the big killer, which a friend calls “get-there-itis.” Its effects are fuel starvation, continued visual flight into instrument conditions, etc. I decided early on that I could minimize those risks by getting additional training and following some basic rules.
I got an instrument rating, decided that when I got down to one hour of fuel or less in the tanks I’d have to land, and in general made a deliberate decision to take the “lowest possible risk” approach to flying—especially with passengers aboard.
I still think that’s a good idea, but considering what we know about the accidents that took the lives of the four pilots described above, it’s not a perfect defense. If a wing comes off in what should have been normal flight, or if an unsuspected medical event puts you out of commission while flying, there’s not a lot you can do. (We’ve tried to deal with the last one by getting Kate trained, initially in a Pinch Hitter course, from which she went on to get her license—but she’s not always in the copilot’s seat.)
One more step is apparent after reviewing this, and it turned up in an odd way. The first of the accidents I’ve mentioned happened so long ago that I couldn’t remember Steve’s last name and was hazy about details. I did remember he was flying a Rockwell Commander. So, when I searched the NTSB database, I put in a date range and the aircraft type. Reading through the resulting list of accidents, I came upon one that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
The pilot of a Commander 112 (a four-place retractable gear single) was trying to get into a mountain airport on a day with a low ceiling. In the process, he got himself into a mountain pass when the ceiling closed in on him. He tried to escape with a turn while calling ATC for an instrument clearance—and didn’t make it.
I came much closer than I’d like to being in exactly the same situation just a week or so before John Slater’s accident. I was flying as the lead airplane on a Poker Run, in which each pilot picks up one playing card (in an envelope) from a box left at several airports. On return to home base, you compare hands and divvy up a pot made up from donations by all participants.
It’s a fun excuse to fly on a nice day, and when Modesto Area Pilots Association (MAPA) planned ours for the last weekend in May, we weren’t expecting any problems with weather.
In the days before the Poker Run weekend, we got a surprise: a weather system blew through on Friday with thunderstorms, and it left low clouds behind it. They’d burned off from Modesto before I departed—carrying boxes of cards for all the airplanes to follow—but as I approached the foothills, I found myself flying under an overcast, and it was getting lower, so I descended.
At the same time, terrain was rising. I switched the GNS 530 to terrain mode, which confirmed what the Mark I Eyeball and sectional chart said: below 3,500 feet I was looking at yellow. I started deviating toward lower terrain to the right, was about ready to descend more and try to scud-run under it… then I thought through what I was doing and considered the experience level of some of the folks behind me.
I lifted wings to check for other aircraft, did a 180 and returned to Oakdale, the last airport where I’d dropped off cards.
That left me in a real quandary about what to do. Improvise another route? The next airport in our plan was socked in too. Fortunately, the pilot in immediately after me was Steve Lucchesi, an ex-Marine with a double portion of quiet good sense. He saved me a lot of wasted effort with some excellent advice: “Just give out all the cards here. People can go anywhere they want and we’ll meet back at Modesto for lunch.”
That’s exactly what we did. It worked out great, and I’ve heard no complaints.
Now, about the hairs standing up on the back of my neck. Suppose I’d been trying to make that flight for other reasons? I really was seriously considering scud-running with a combination of a low cloud deck and rising terrain—a classic case of “get-there-itis.”
Fortunately, common sense cut in, and Steve Meissel’s accident reinforced it… And the recent loss of yet another good pilot who had a very bad day caused me to reflect further on that decision chain.
So, while it may seem more than a little morbid, I think spending some time contemplating what gets pilots killed might just be the best possible way to serve their memories—and improve the odds that I will choose the safest practices whenever I am faced with a critical decision in the air.
A final note: The three passengers—all high school students—that John Slater was carrying were pulled alive from his wrecked airplane by local fishermen, and have since returned to the United States. One of those brave fishermen was subsequently injured in a traffic accident and cannot work. A fund has been established for donations to help educate his children. You’ll find a link to that fund (and information on the survivors) at below. The others should be self-explanatory.
Fly safe! –JDR
John D. Ruley is an instrument-rated pilot, freelance writer, and holds a master’s degree from the University of North Dakota Space Studies program (space.edu). He is a volunteer pilot with ligainternational.org, which operates medical missions in northwest Mexico. He is also a member of the board of directors of Mission Doctors Association (missiondoctors.org). Send questions or comments to editor@www.piperflyer.com.
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