Ed. Note: Kevin wrote this for his local newspaper, the Bourbon County Citizen.
We lost three fellow aviators last week when a UPS MD-11 crashed on takeoff out of Louisville.
You have seen the video of the accident by now. There is no need for me to recap what happened. Death comes to us all; to some, it comes suddenly from behind and out of the sun. Pilots live with the possibility of death and disaster when we fly, but then again, so do you when you drive home from work.
Something terrible and out of the ordinary happened on the day of this crash, and it may take over a year to receive the full NTSB report.
Waiting for aviation accident investigation results is something people are not good at. They want immediate answers. They think something obvious must be wrong, and a few ghouls are already on the internet spouting stupid and insipid theories about a catastrophe they know almost nothing about.
I have been flying airplanes professionally for over 50 years. Let me tell you about the flight crew that died this week. I have not met them, but all pilots are made of the same stuff. I know these people.
Fear may have entered their minds during their last moments, but I doubt it. I know what they were doing for those few seconds. They were working the problem.
In my career, I have faced problems such as in-flight fires, engine failures, extreme turbulence, wind shear, and flight control emergencies. During those times, I worked the problem.
I got stressed out and frightened when those episodes were over to the point of getting the shakes and becoming sick to my stomach, but during the emergencies, I did what my fellow pilots do; I worked the problem.
A pilot’s biggest fear is not dying in an airplane; it is messing up and then dying in an airplane.
They did it right up to the moment it went wrong. As I said, I know these people. None of them was slack with safety, and they were professionals. What they had was a bad day.
Calling this tragic loss of life a “bad day” may sound trite, and based on some of my previous writing here, you might think I am making a poor joke. Today I am not joking.
Every pilot knows others have lost their lives due to things beyond their control. You can do everything right, have the best intentions, and still have a bad day in aviation, resulting in bent metal and dead people.
Here is the thing. No matter how much safety is pursued and practiced, there is still the occasional bad day for pilots and passengers. The NTSB and FAA will not stop until they find out what went wrong this week, and then we will fix it and move on. That is what we do as a society of humans. We have problems, we fix them, and we move on.
There is no comfort for the families of the lost flight crew. Saying they died doing what they loved is a trite and hurtful thing. None of them wanted to die doing what they loved. None of them wanted to die at all, ever.
We pilots call it “Flying West” when another pilot dies. We wish them peace, smooth rides, and beautiful landings. All pilots, including this one, will fly west someday.
If there is an afterlife, I hope to meet all my pilot friends at a nice hangar where we can drink cold beers, sit on comfortable chairs, pet the airport dog, and swap flying stories.
Amen.
Well said. Here in New England we recently had an experienced Part 91 pilot crash just after take off. The Internet “experts” and ghouls have been insufferable. Especially insulting to the families. A number of us have gone on a hard campaign to comment “if you are not a pilot – you are not qualified to comment”. It hasn’t stopped the initial posts but it does seem to slow or stop the propagation.
Excellent writing, Kevin. You have exactly captured how I would like to describe this event and the pilots involved to my non-flying friends and family.
“A pilot’s biggest fear is not dying in an airplane; it is messing up and then dying in an airplane.”
I never thought about it like that, but very well written. Thank you for putting into words what many of us feel .
I’d add that the greatest fear isn’t merely messing up and dying, but taking someone else out with you.
They might have been military pilots in the past. I don’t know their history. I will certainty through a nickel on the grass and wish them well on their last flight home to St. Peter. 🙁
Beautifully written KG. We’ve come a long way from Tallahassee, eh?
Thanks Alex
That was a beautifully-written, clear-eyed, and universal eulogy for all pilots, Kevin. If you fly long enough, we (or our survivors) will need your words.
My father died in a departure stall/spin at the age of 50 in our Citabria. I was 26, his eldest, and the only other pilot in the family, As such, I had to deal with the out-of-state coroner and make funerary and recovery arrangements. But the worst aspect of the ordeal was dealing with the recurrent late-night “what ifs”. It took years for them to subside.
It also took a couple of years to save the funds to buy another airplane, but I did, and have continuously owned aircraft for nearly fifty years. Try as I might, I continue to encounter “deviations from the norm” in the air, so I am printing this out for my wife. I want her to know that I was working that last problem as long as I could.
…and yet…
Like the AA191 DC-10 accident many years ago, it appears maybe this crew did it “by the book” and the book killed them. In the case of AA191, the book was changed as a result of what we learned from that accident. So what’s my point?
In transport category aircraft, we have a rather slavish devotion to V1. Past V1, we generally consider ourselves absolutely committed to fly. This commitment is so strong we take our hand off the throttles and put it on the yoke so that we aren’t tempted to try to stop when there is insufficient runway remaining to stop. And yet…
V1 is designated as the decision speed for the case of an engine failure — fail below V1 and we stop, fail above V1 and we go. And this is a perfectly good concept for dealing with simple engine failures. But what if the problem isn’t just the loss of thrust from one of our multiple engines? What if it is the disintegration of an engine, damaging aerodynamics, structures, or flight controls? What if it is a structural failure unrelated to thrust loss? Do we really want to take a physically damaged plane into the air, or would we rather try to keep it on the ground and accept that we’ll go off the departure end of the runway at moderate speed resulting in moderate or even substantial damage but a survivable impact rather than have an unsurvivable uncontrolled crash?
Consider ONA 032, a DC-10 which suffered a multiple bird impact below V1 resulting in #3 engine disintegration leading to hydraulic system loss, brake malfunction, tire disintegration, and spoiler failure. The crew aborted, but due to the loss of stopping power, the airplane went off the end of the runway. There were 32 injuries and the aircraft was destroyed by the resulting fire, but all 139 persons aboard survived. Had this occurred above V1 and the takeoff continued, might it have ended just as the UPS flight did? So even above V1, with a catastrophic failure rather than simple loss of thrust from one engine, would a crew have been better off aborting?
Also, consider Continental 603, another DC-10 which had a multiple tire failure just short of V1. Again, the crew aborted. While the abort was initiated 2 knots below V1, the combination of ongoing acceleration during the time it took for the thrust to drop led to the aircraft exceeding V1 before it began to decelerate. That extra speed/distance led to the aircraft going off the end of the runway at high speed, resulting in left main gear collapse and a fire, but 184 of the 186 occupants survived (the only fatalities being two people who disobeyed egress instructions from the crew an jumped out into the fire).
It seems to me there are times when a high-speed abort above V1 may be preferable to continuing the takeoff. This might involve a fire not contained to an engine nacelle, structural damage to the airframe, or similar conditions where the aircraft is no longer capable of controlled flight. Imagine if the UA 232 (no, I’m not intentionally picking on DC-10’s) fan failure and subsequent total hydraulic failure and complete loss of flight controls had occurred above V1 on takeoff rather than at altitude. I think it certain that flight would have ended just as this UPS flight did, with 100% fatality rate.
So, has the time come to rethink the concept of taking into the air any problem which occurs above V1? Is more research on this issue required? Do we need to change our takeoff continue/abort decision making process?
The CVR might tell when they knew what was happening, how bad it was, and how catastrophic it was becoming. But from looking at the video, it sure looks like it all happened, the engine, the massive fire, so quick and at or around V1. I hope the NTSB keeps the actual recording to themselves and just give out a synopsis of all of that. But looking at the videos, it sure looks like it’s as close to an impossible situation as can happen. Bless all their families.
Flying, for all its beauty, keeps us honest about how fragile life is. RIP.
Every pilot walks to the airplane for their last flight. Some know it will be, some don’t.
You’re wrong. I count on my experience and ability to manage risk to get where I’m going. Millions of people fly every year. Do they all think it’s their last flight? You’re just mouthing words. If you’re not confident, don’t go. Take a bus.
Just about a bit over a year ago, I lost a dear friend to a (so far) unexplained accident in a Be99 during a training flight in New England. A pilot I got to know and love for who he was a a friend – but also a 10.000+ hour colleague I spent well in advance of 500h of cockpit time with. I absolutely trusted him not to die in a pile of crumpled- up aluminum…
The news reached me via ex-wife by Email – not because she knew I would be shocked – but because she was shocked. Close to home.
I have lived through some severe stuff with this guy and I can hear his last words, even though I wasn’t there. It pains me to think about the process of realization he went through. I wonder about the moments just prior to impact – and what goes on in the mind of a pro who met his master. I know he didn’t love dying and I know he didn’t love flying enough to die doing it. I pray to Odin nobody ever writes this about me when I manage a smoking crater…
The list of lost friends and flying buddies is longer than I wish to count. However – I do have severe allergic reactions to non-pilot judgement and journalistic hype.
I for one prefer to hope for that set of nice deckchairs and cold beers – sitting among a whole truckload of people who went without planning to before me. The last thing I want to hear them say is: “Oh, righteous Baker – there you are!”
This next flight can be your last and unlike a retiring colleague walking out to that shiny plane for the last time… you never knew it.