AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2017 - 14

LETTERS

says the weather is "-X E80
BKN, ¼ BS, IC, RVR 700, Wind
40° left Rwy, wind 30 gust 35
kt, temp -30F." In the remarks
column is another notation: "Rt
mag Rt Eng inop on runup. Flew
it home that way."
Why would a sane pilot
fly all the way from the North
Shore of Alaska to Anchorage
with one mag not working? There are no hangars at
Deadhorse. The wind is blowing 35 gusting to 40 miles per
hour. The temperature is 30
degrees below zero.
It would take our C-123
three and a half hours to get to
Deadhorse. Daylight would be
waning. The wind would blow
canvas shelters to shreds. There
are no hotels at Deadhorse.
We took off with three mags
working. But, we told our boss
that the magneto quit while
we were airborne. Of course,
he knew the truth. But, this is
Alaska. You do what you have
to do to get the job done.

news of a crash. Every time, I
ask my husband, "How could
that have happened?" and he
reassures me flying can be
extremely safe. He's an A&P
mechanic as well, so he knows
most airplanes inside and out.
He always says it's operator
error. I've been learning to fly
with about three hours so far,
but then I see another accident
and it freaks me out about flying. Could it really be operator
error? I had a hard time believing this, until I read this article.
With cars or motorcycles,
we tend to be at ease when
taking chances, and not every
outcome works out. Luck
shouldn't ever be factored in,
but many of us have done it. 
It seems that thought process is being used by pilots,
when there really shouldn't be a
space for it in such a sport. From
what Kenny is saying, flying is
by the books. Stick to proper
operation and enjoy the flight
with precious cargo.

Operator error

Return on investment

Tom Gribble
AOPA 289612
Gering, Nebraska

I just read David Jack Kenny's
writeup in March 2017 AOPA
Pilot ("Safety Spotlight: 'Not
Again'"). As the wife of a private pilot, I find myself saying
the same thing when I hear

Rania Linderman
AOPA 4450419
Endicott, New York

Thomas B. Haines hit upon
a valid topic in his article
"Waypoints: Stretching Your
Wings." In a college economics
course the professor used the
term "utils" to explain return on

SAFETY SPOTLIGHT

'Not again'

BY DAVID JACK KENNY

We don't have to keep making the same mistakes
EARLY IN The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a bowl

of petunias thinks, "Oh, no, not again." Those of us
who spend too much time immersed in National
Transportation Safety Board reports are well
acquainted with that feeling.
It's true that in 2012 an Iowa crop duster managed
to disprove the adage that there are no new ways to
crash an airplane by hitting power lines while chatting on his cellphone during a spray run. Still, the
sequences leading to the vast majority of fatal general aviation accidents are depressingly familiar-and
distressingly unnecessary. Disregarding a century's
worth of accumulated wisdom, pilots choose to roll
the dice by cutting into fuel reserves, pushing into

There was no good reason for any of these pilots
to endanger the lives of their passengers-not that
there ever is!

AOPA Air Safety
Institute statistician
DAVID JACK KENNY

is a fixed-wing ATP
with commercial
privileges for helicopter. He took his
first flight lesson at
age 41.

deteriorating weather, or yanking and banking at
altitudes that leave no margin for error. Every year
dozens of them lose.
You could regard it as natural selection if they
were the only victims, but of course they're not-
and I'm not talking about the public image of GA.
Casualties on the ground are blessedly rare, but often
there are others in those airplanes. Frequently they're
the ones the pilot cares about most.
There were several reasons the preliminary
report on a September 2016 accident caught my eye.
One was the extremity of the behavior it described. A
Super Cub replica on floats crashed into a residential
neighborhood of Anchorage, Alaska, as its pilot did
extremely steep turns at extremely low altitudes-witnesses estimated 60-plus degrees of bank at no more
than 50 feet agl on the final pass. The airplane began
to recover from the apparent stall just before impact;
given a reasonable amount of elbow room, the pilot
might have pulled it out.
He narrowly missed both houses and pedestrians-but his dog, who he'd brought along for the
ride, died with him in the wreck. Perhaps because I've
devoted much of my own flying career to transporting
rescue dogs, that fact hit me particularly hard. The
dog had no inkling that his life would be imperiled
by a knuckleheaded stunt. He just climbed aboard

with his accustomed trust in the man who had always
taken care of him.
That dog-and the bowl of petunias-came to mind
again during the last week of December 2016. While
probable cause isn't likely to be determined before 2018
at the earliest, three fatal accidents in the course of five
days bore all the hallmarks of attempts to continue flying VFR into instrument conditions. Eleven people died
as a result. Two more were killed during an attempted
instrument approach into below-minimums weather
after dark, using a procedure not authorized at night.
The three people in the Cessna 182 that crashed
in Tennessee were joining family members for a vacation. The pilot of the 182 that crashed in Washington
was taking his fiancée and her two young grandchildren on a hop of just 60 nautical miles. The Piper Arrow
that crashed with four fatalities in Iowa was headed
to Nashville on New Year's Eve. And the turboprop
wrecked in the unauthorized approach was trying to
make it back to its base at a residential airpark when a
public-use airport 12 nautical miles away was reporting clear skies and good visibility.
In short, there was no good reason for any of these
pilots to endanger the lives of their passengers-not
that there ever is! And it's a good bet most of those
passengers were no better equipped to weigh those
risks than the dog in Anchorage. Knowing only that
they were placing their fates in the hands of a "licensed
pilot," they climbed aboard and buckled up with a trust
as pure and naïve as any canine's.
I don't think it's my training as a statistician that
makes it hard to understand taking additional risks
with passengers on board. My goal is always to avoid
so much as scaring them (if humanly possible) so they'll
want to fly with me again. If that means we depart late
or return early to avoid dicey conditions, so be it. I can
understand wanting to demonstrate the value of a personal airplane (especially to a skeptical spouse), but
it's not worth venturing into the realm where strategy
devolves into hope.
Reading every fresh report of trust betrayed, I wish
those pilots could have talked to my mother first. When
I was a new driver eager to build time shuttling my
siblings around, she'd only give me the keys after a twoword reminder: "Precious cargo."
AOPA

HANGAR TALK

Bob Paszczyk
AOPA 622360
Tinley Park, Illinois

EMAIL david.kenny@aopa.org

22 | AOPA PILOT March 2017

Tried and true-
"There are old pilots.
There are bold pilots.
There are no old, bold
pilots!"

Charles Nicholson
AOPA 436275
High Point, North Carolina

investment. His example was
on a hot day we might be willing to spend $5 for an ice cream
cone. But a second or third cone
would not have that value.
Likewise, the $100 hamburger may be very satisfying
in our early aviation experience,
but quickly loses its appeal.
Over the years I have flown
for pleasure and business, and

JILL W. TALLMAN'S trip to the Remos AG fac-

14 | AOPA PILOT May 2017

rented and owned aircraft. I've
taken my mother, sons, and
grandsons, along with many
others, for their first rides. I've
experienced many things that
would not be possible but for
GA. But now an hour's drive
to an airport for an hour flight
no longer seems to afford the
"utils" it once did. Sadly on a
CAVU weekend afternoon, the
skies are quiet, indicating that
many others feel the same way.

tory in Pasewalk, Germany, was not what she
expected. "I have never visited a manufacturing facility, so I envisioned something like a big
hangar with lots of parts stacked around. The
Remos facility is clean and bright and
incredibly organized," she said. While awaiting
U.S. certification of the GXiS as a Special Light
Sport aircraft, Remos continues to produce
ultralight aircraft for the European market, and
also manufactures wings for gliders under a
contract with Stemme AG in Strausberg.

Clarification

I was disappointed to read
about the use of 123.45
for air-to-air communication during formation flight
in Tom Lecompte's article
("Technique: Keeping Station,"
February 2017 AOPA Pilot).
I realize he was reporting
what he observed. Perhaps, an
editor's note about which frequencies are correct should
have been added. The information is in the Aeronautical
Information Manual; it is a
shame pilots don't use it.
Ed Lindsay
AOPA 1060680
Sarasota, Florida

Erratum

In "Pilot Briefing: The Thrill Is
Back" (April 2017 AOPA Pilot),
we incorrectly identified the
museum where Mary Flake
volunteers in Moreno Valley,
California. It is the March
Field Air Museum. AOPA Pilot
regrets the error.
We welcome your comments.
Editor, AOPA Pilot, 421 Aviation
Way, Frederick, Maryland 21701
or email (pilot@aopa.org). Letters may be edited for length
and style before publication.



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2017

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