AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - November 2013 - 20

SAFETY PILOT

Aftermath

BRUCE LANDSBERG
President, AOPA Foundation

Defending the right to fly after an accident
EARLY THIS FALL an Air Safety Institute (ASI) team flew
to Chester, Connecticut, to conduct a safety program
after a Turbo Commander accident in New Haven. The
TC-690 was on a circling instrument approach when it
departed controlled flight in, or near, the base-to-final
turn. The Commander crashed into a house; two children, as well as the pilot and his son, were lost.
Ground fatalities are rare but almost always attract
media attention. Over the past five years, the national
average was three people lost to aircraft falling on them.
That doesn’t diminish the individual tragedy, but it does
put the risk into context. Pedestrian fatalities exceeded
4,400 last year and lightning deaths average just more
than 50 annually. AOPA’s Communications Division
and ASI strive hard to convey a realistic perception
immediately after an accident and in the weeks that

Speculation is often rampant early in investigations,
and inconvenient fact can drastically change the
perception of an incident.

BRUCE LANDSBERG

is president
of the AOPA
Foundation, which
funds the work
of the Air Safety
Institute.

follow. Safety seminars provide one opportunity to
educate both the media and the community. However,
several weeks after an accident, the media focus often
is on other events.
Speculation is often rampant early in investigations,
and inconvenient facts can drastically change the perception of an incident. A few years ago an LSA was lost
during a student orientation ride. An aviation pundit—
who should have known better—ventured an opinion
regarding the general inferiority of LSAs and posited a
design or mechanical fault. Contrary to that assertion, a
screwdriver lodged in the elevator control system after
the aircraft was airborne rendered it uncontrollable. So
much for instant analysis.
Occasionally pilots behaving badly create a public
relations debacle. In one particularly egregious case a
couple of guys actually said before takeoff they would
show the world how flying was done. The low-level
aerobatic display over a neighborhood was a spectacular display of incompetence and poor judgment. There
was predictable outrage when they stalled over a house,
killing themselves and a sleeping teenager. In ASI’s
seminar that followed, we avoided the specifics of the
crash but made it very clear what both regulations and
common sense require.

20 | AOPA PILOT November 2013

The flight from Frederick to Connecticut took place
on a beautiful VFR afternoon, directly over the top of
the New York Class Bravo airspace. We used flight following, onboard traffic avoidance, and even managed to
look out the window to avoid any slightly close encounters. Only in the United States could this have been
done, and the controllers do a fabulous job of managing this in the busiest airspace in the world. Our altitude
was optimal for keeping the flight above arrivals and
departures and well below en route airline aircraft.
We passed directly over the Newark and La Guardia
airports; the Hudson River corridor; and viewed the
Manhattan skyline, the Statue of Liberty, and the
new One World Trade Center from 9,500 feet. Only
in America! It is both impressive and sobering to look
at the expanse of buildings below. There aren’t many
places for a forced landing—although I’ve heard the
Hudson River will do in a pinch.
Chester is about 20 miles inland and nestled in a
large forested area. No zoning problems here—unlike
New Haven, which has typical encroachment. The
airport is privately owned, but open to the public. It
belongs to Whelen Engineering. A police officer with
flashing blue and red lights—Whelen. Red and white
lights on fire trucks and ambulances—Whelen. Pace
car lighting as well as the green, yellow, and red control lights at a NASCAR race—Whelen. And chances are
pretty good that your aircraft strobes or anticollision
lights are Whelen as well. The company hosted the program and provided refreshments for the 90 or so pilots
who made the trek out to hear our safety message. Some
had driven well more than an hour. For us, the airlines
would have taken longer than the hour and a half each
way but they can’t always go door to door. It also would
have required the time and expense of an overnight stay.
It is the nature of news pundits, bloggers, and this
column to focus on the negative, but for the vast majority of pilots on the vast majority of flights, it all works
as intended. The unreachables won’t participate but
the teachables far outnumber them.
Once the program was over and all the questions answered, we flew back down the Northeast
Corridor marveling at the sea of lights, the night, and
our freedom to fly in these United States. That’s worth
defending!
AOPA
WEB www.airsafetyinstitute.org

http://www.airsafetyinstitute.org

AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - November 2013

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