Concerns about flying after friend killed in crash

Dave Arata

Dave Arata

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Dave
I understand many of us in the flying community have lost friends due to accidents and I'm curious how you all process that. I was recently made aware of a fantastic young man, whom I knew well and was the grandson of a good friend, was killed in a crash this past Saturday. On top of that, I was in Coeur d' Alene when the mid-air happened. My wife and I took a flight in that Beaver a few years ago and enjoyed watching it take off at sunset on our way to dinner earlier in the week. Lastly, while in CDA, I found out an acquaintance was killed in a motor glider at my home airport. That's quite a few "close to home" accidents and loss of life in a couple of months. To be honest, it's affected my desire to fly and continue training. What say you?
 
i know several killed on motorcycles, cars, tractors, firearms, airplanes and cancer.

One that really makes you think is 5 local underage teen girls, all from different families, speeding on a local highway, crashing into a tree and burning to death, one survived. All 5 of them were intoxicated. None of them were over 16 years old.

Another was a guy stopped on a highway waiting to turn, another guy rear ended that stopped car and hit an oncoming car head-on there were two adults and 4 kids dead at that scene. Low viability was a factor.

I had some engine trouble a couple weeks ago (lost power on 1 of 4 cylinders), landed at a local airport. A friend in that town came out with some tools and we troubleshot it about 2pm on a Sat. Within an hour I was airborne again, but there was some careful consideration of all the cornfields below on the way.
 
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It’s never easy, ever, especially when it’s close to home.

My uncle was a passenger who was killed in a King Air accident and that’s something my family will never get over and rightfully so, even though we know it was caused by an arrogant pilot that got way too overconfident in his abilities.

To echo what @bnt83 said, I also know folks who were killed in car accidents, motorcycle wrecks, aircraft accidents and cancer. Most anything comes with risks, but it’s all about learning to mitigate those risks as best you can. With flying, we can control a lot of how safe we aviate, by using good judgement and staying proficient.

Another thing to point out, is that we as pilots have a huge responsibility. Not only do the decisions we make affect us, but they affect everyone else on board our aircraft, something that holds true especially in the accident my uncle was involved in.

Me personally, I’d much rather live my life doing the things I enjoy, than live in fear and have regrets later on in life for not doing the things I’ve wanted to do.
 
Probably most of us have lost friends or acquaintances in this game, it's part of the risks we take. It's easy to say, "He screwed up; I would never make that mistake," and maybe we wouldn't. But it's never affected my desire to fly.
 
Ryanb said:
Interesting. What was the diagnosis?
Click to expand...

Giant vacuum leak from two bolts missing. I have an older engine monitor and one CHT was down to 120F and it vibrated a bit (most I've ever experienced). All other temps and oil pressure was good so I figured it would stay running, it did.

Of course you can't see jack when preflighting a cessna with the tiny oil door.
 
Been flying quite a few years and these kinds of events don't seem to be evenly spread over time, seems like they group them selves together.
It is a time to re-evaulate are you as safe of a pilot as you can be? Should you adjust your minimums, types of flying activities? Are there lessons to be learned from these events?
Some Like the Mid-Air are hard to say that anyone actually screwed up. Airplanes are blind in a lot more directions that we like to admit.
Some times stuff just happens and only a small percentage of it is aviation related, Cars, motorcycle, Health, etc.

Usually the best cure for the should I keep doing this feeling is to go do it. After a few flight you will realize you enjoy it. A very large percentage of us will fly for a long time without a serious accident. A very small percentages of us won't. But the same is true for driving a car, See that post above about 5 teenagers killed an a car accident.

Bet you aren't thinking about quitting driving.
The old saying goes like this "Most pilots aren't afraid of dying in a crash, they are much more afraid that the crash might be their fault"


Brian
 
Control the fear (concern) and harness it to become the safest pilot you can. Train in your plane. Train in sims. Learn as much about weather as possible. Keep your plane as well maintained as possible. Review NTSB reports to learn from others. Fly regularly. Etc.

If the fear controls you it would probably be wise to take a break.
 
I just finished my commercial and I'm a bit burned out. Haven't flown since the checkride (5 weeks or so). I do need to get back up and knock out some approaches to stay current. That should be enough motivation. That and trying to convince my buddy that we need to take his RV-7 to Telluride before the weather turns. :)
 
It's Schrodinger's Accident. Whether or not you're are aware of the crashes, or how close you are to the people affected, really has no bearing on your own statistical likelihood of having an accident (outside of what you learn from accident(s))
 
Dave Arata said:
I understand many of us in the flying community have lost friends due to accidents and I'm curious how you all process that. I was recently made aware of a fantastic young man, whom I knew well and was the grandson of a good friend, was killed in a crash this past Saturday. On top of that, I was in Coeur d' Alene when the mid-air happened. My wife and I took a flight in that Beaver a few years ago and enjoyed watching it take off at sunset on our way to dinner earlier in the week. Lastly, while in CDA, I found out an acquaintance was killed in a motor glider at my home airport. That's quite a few "close to home" accidents and loss of life in a couple of months. To be honest, it's affected my desire to fly and continue training. What say you?
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i, too, lost. friend in a training accident almost 50-yrs ago. while tragic and he was gone waaaaay too soon it didn't deter me from training. other life issues interrupted my training but i eventually completed and earned my SPL.

look at it this way. it's far more risky in terms of an accident to drive to the airport, mall, dinner, etc. than it is to fly in a small plane. consider:

There were 33,654 fatal motor vehicle crashes in the United States in 2018 in which 36,560 deaths occurred. This resulted in 11.2 deaths per 100,000 people and 1.13 deaths per 100 million miles traveled.
source: https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/state-by-state.

Data showed that 381 people (or 97 percent of all fatalities) were killed in general aviation operations in 2018, compared with 331 people in 2017. The NTSB calculated the fatal accident rate in general aviation as 1.029 accidents per 100,000 flighthours, compared with a rate of 0.935 in 2017.
source: https://flightsafety.org/2018-data-show-increase-in-u-s-aviation-fatalities/

one is too many but my point is that we walk out of the door, climb into our cars and zoom hither and yon and while we try to be safe the thought of dying or being seriously injured in an accident never really enters our mind until we see an accident or 1st responders en route with lights and sirens. why is this? because we've become accustomed to doing this. for most it's an everyday activity.

not trying to dismiss your anxiety. not at all. but you may feel bettervif you put the risk in its proper conext.
 
I have been through this as I lost two good friends to an airplane accident while learning to fly and then witnessed a midair while at the airport two weeks later while reminiscing with some others about our friends. The look on the teenage sons face as he came out of the FBO and saw his dad dead in one of the airplanes from the midair will forever be burned in my mind. Airplane accidents rarely affect just those who are flying.

There are those that compare the statistics to other things in life. None of that matters when it happens to you or someone you love. Flying has an element of danger and risk no matter how careful you try to be. It’s up to you if it is worth the risk. Just remember when reading accident reports and thinking “I would never have done that”. The person flying probably thought the same thing at one point. With anything in life it is possible to be as safe as possible and still have bad things happen to you.
 
When pondering that question I've come to the realization I'm a control freak. The notion of dying as a bystander in an activity antagonizes the living s--t out of me. As such, if there's anything the death of friends and loved ones, both in life and this line of work has done for me, is to galvanize my desire to maximize the time spent driving the ship, and minimize my exposure to being a bystander.

It's irrational, considering the amount of true lack of control i have in this life (my family's health, effing cancer ruining everybody's life earlier than wanted, et al) but at least I can now objectively recognize that said aversion to "passengership" and lack of control has steered a lot of my choices and personality in life (namely, not one to dabble in intoxicants recreationally, not sit rear seat in GA, minimize sitting pax in cars with coworkers/acquaintances, etc).

Great question OP! Love these introspective threads.
 
My wife and I lost our first child.
We went on to have two more.
They are 23 and 27 now.
The fear of loosing one is far outweighed by the joy they bring us.
I lost a brother to an aviation accident. What happened yesterday has no reflection on my tomorrow.
I’m not a good pilot but I’m a safe one.
My family doesn’t need another loss.
 
Sorry for your losses Dave.

Im fairly new to this game, so I haven't been through this, but all the older pilots I know have. That honestly gave me a lot of pause. I spent a lot of time poring through accident reports. I eventually decided that the benefits outweigh the risks, and that by working hard to be proficient, and being wary of complacency, the risks can be greatly mitigated.

But that's easy to say until you lose someone close.
 
Great original post and replies to a tough, sobering issue. I don't ride with my wife on the back of my motorcycle anymore; I see too much idiocy on the roads on a daily basis to take that risk and responsibility. Flying feels infinitely safer to me because the burden for safety falls much more squarely in my shoulders, rather than those of a bajillion strangers all around me driving at and above highway speeds a mere two men three feet away, and milliseconds from a fatal event. Flying feels infinitely safer... And yet, my preflight routine and checklist usage would probably make many other pilots scoff at my compulsiveness. I do everything I can to ensure safety. After having done so, we enjoy flying together knowing that we've minimized the risk as much as possible, and that bad things can happen anywhere anytime no matter what you're doing... So why not enjoy flying together? As others have said... We all have to find our own personal balance between survival and truly living. They are not the same thing
 
Out of my Army class of 38 pilots, 3 would later die in accidents and one a TBI (blade to the head). I’ve never dwelled on it but seeing friends die from the businesses does make you acutely aware of the risks. To me the reward, whether flying for fun or work outweighs the risks. Mitigate as much as possible, use good ADM and the odds are in your favor.
 
All that has been said is true. But be prepared to die, in spite of our best efforts, it will happen. Do not be afraid of death for it leads to an unfulfilling, fearful life.
Have all of your stuff in order. Have adequate life insurance. Have an up to date will, list your beneficiaries of your 401K. Write that letter to your loved ones and put them all in a safe place that everyone knows about AND can access without a court order (my daughter and wife can sign for access to my safe deposit box). Review all of this with a competent lawyer. Make it easier for the ones that you have left behind.
Be at peace with whatever you call your maker.
Then go live the best life with the time that you have left, without being too foolish.
 
As with most my age (40s), I’ve lost friends, classmates, etc along the way. I lost my sister to a collision at 27. I was very close to POI in Reno in 2011. I lost a friend that I raced motocross with to an on-track incident.

They affected me in different ways. My sister didn’t cause me pause with driving, but it did cause me to have a lot of trouble back at work initially (first responder) knowing I no longer had a sister, but that every day my “clientele” did horrible things to others and their own bodies and somehow got to live. Took me a long time to work through that.

My friend dying racing didn’t cause me to stop riding, but after I landed on a deer (ran out on a blind jump) and hurt myself on the same track, I stopped going to that track.

Reno caused me to not even want to look at an airplane for a month or two, which was a big deal as airplanes were a fascination for me since more or less birth. As that started to fade, it actually had the effect of finally kickstarting my willingness to commit to getting my ppl.

One overall lesson I have taken is that life can be gone in an instant, so enjoy it. Do what you are passionate about. Get out and have fun. Tell those you care about that you do-don’t assume “they know.”
 
Ok, I didn't lose a friend, just someone close I know, but I should have lost him. When it's 4am, 200 ft ceiling and you run out of gas going missed, you are reaching deep into your bag of luck. Instead, he broke out over a forest, with the single clear patch directly in front of him and not much more than enough space to get on the ground with. Mangled the heck out of the plane but he stumbled away with only serious injuries - concussion and cracked ribs I remember.

How did I process it? I quit flying for about two months, partly from fear, but partly because he was...is...a good pilot. So if he can do that, how bad can I screw up? I went through a lot of emotions, but remember being mad at him and I think he was embarrassed by it too. Eventually I focused on understanding exactly what he did wrong and mentally worked it into my thinking as a trigger to stop myself from doing it...then I slowly got back into the plane and started going out again.

Can't change the past. But I can try to make sure I do everything possible to prevent it from happening again, at least to me.
 
I have lost more than a double handful of friends in aviation accidents. More than once I have gotten out of a plane only to learn the plane crashed on the next flight due to something going wrong with the plane. I once located a missing plane that was nothing more than a smoking hole in the ground knowing there was people on board. When it was time for my multi commercial checkride, I gave up my time slot and airplane so another guy could do his ATP ride. He had a plane to catch, had a job waiting for him and was short of time. While on the simulated single engine ILS, the operating engine failed and the plane landed short of the runway. Yet business is business, life goes on, aviation continued.

Some day folks will be watching me get planted, and someone will say, ''there goes Billy. What an interesting life he had, What y'all doing for lunch?''

It is all about risk assessment. To me, little risk, little reward. I don't have kids, but my mom is still with us and my wife. Sometimes the thought of them makes me re-think how I will do something, but it doesn't stop me from doing.

Only you can make this decision. Others can give information to think about, but ultimately you have to make that decision.
 
I don't let the fear of death stop me from living. Doesn't mean I do reckless things, but I spend my time figuring out how to do better rather than spending it worrying that I'm not good enough. Bottom line, none of us are getting out of this alive, and I'd rather live however long I live doing things that I enjoy than live a lot longer and be miserable.
 
My bride and I survived our catastrophic engine out and subsequent off airport “landing” . Not the same as losing someone, I understand. After multiple surgeries and rehab I’m back flying.

Together we decided to keep flying, life is very short, enjoy every minute of it. Remember and honor those gone, but don’t stop living.
 
One of my first few GA flights, well before I was even taking flying lessons, was the closest I have ever come to dying that I can think of (or that I know of). At one point I was quite certain it was my day to check out, and all I could hope for was enough impact force to kill me quickly before the post-crash fire did. It took me about five seconds to think through all of that, and realize that it was OK. If I bought it, I had enough insurance that my wife and kids wouldn't be out on the street. I had all kinds of plans, but they were meaningless since I'd be dead in a couple of minutes. There wasn't a thing I could do a that point to change the outcome. So in a few seconds I figured out that if I were going to die, I'd die, and the world would move on.

Now the kids are on their own, wife will be quite comfortable for life no matter how long she lives, and all it means is that I won't have to worry about all these damn half finished projects any more.

As it happened, I lived. So did the guy flying that day, for a while at least. I don't have to worry about all that crap any more, it's already pre-worried. I'll do whatever I possibly can to stay alive, but if it happens... well, it happens. Every day is a gift.
 
My brother dropped dead at 23 playing softball- picture of health, and his heart just went whack. I was 8... it has given me a very carpe diem outlook.

we all have our own risk tolerance.

just remember no matter what you do or don’t do in life that you too will be worm food someday, and the universe will roll on without so much as a hiccup. It’s not cold, just reality...

If ya don’t live while you are alive-you are dead the whole time anyway...
 
Dave Arata said:
I understand many of us in the flying community have lost friends due to accidents and I'm curious how you all process that. I was recently made aware of a fantastic young man, whom I knew well and was the grandson of a good friend, was killed in a crash this past Saturday. On top of that, I was in Coeur d' Alene when the mid-air happened. My wife and I took a flight in that Beaver a few years ago and enjoyed watching it take off at sunset on our way to dinner earlier in the week. Lastly, while in CDA, I found out an acquaintance was killed in a motor glider at my home airport. That's quite a few "close to home" accidents and loss of life in a couple of months. To be honest, it's affected my desire to fly and continue training. What say you?
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Dave - I went through this exact set of emotions when my friend and helicopter mentor was killed in a helicopter crash. PM me off-list and I'll send you my cell phone number. I'd be happy to discuss my journey going from having little desire to fly, back to once again loving it.

Hang in there!
 
The longer you live, the more people you will know who have died. I saw a fatal crash the week I started flight training - up close. I know what the occupants' fatal injuries looked like. Just stay sober, let those things motivate you to do your best to make safe choices, but remember, your trip to the airport could just as easily have a fatal outcome.
 
Few years ago I sat down with my dad (former Canadian bush, African missionary and stateside/global commercial pilot) and he listed out many of those he had known who perished while flying. That was rather sobering. I could hear him watching the Mayday disaster shows nightly when I was visiting. I took my half-brother up while visiting. He’s a college student, accomplished bike racer, etc. But dad never took him flying. I let him fly most of the time aloft. When we got back to the house dad was like ... well that sounds like a recipe for disaster. Lol. Even when I fly Young Eagles if they wish I let them fly the plane.

I know every time I rotate might be my last. While I do everything possible to mitigate that there are factors outside of my control. It’s a risk assessment that pilots are trained to utilize. I have worked hard to earn the license to learn. I will continue to exercise that right, with due diligence. I’m a fuel queen. I respect high DA situations here in Utah. I stay away from bad weather. I am also a private pilot and fly only when conditions are conducive to my comfort level. Some of you might wonder if I ever fly. Yes; plenty enough I think. I love flying. It’s my favorite hobby. If I become a statistic I truly hope it is I who failed the aircraft and not the other way around.
 
It will never happen to me ... is the common human thought which keeps us driving and flying every time we hear about an accident

But along with that we become a little more careful and attentive in order to make sure it wont happen to us.

I always tell friends to read as many accident reports as possible .... I call it the pilots bible .... full of knowledge , sometimes humbling , and can save you.
 
To the OP, death is the inevitable outcome for all of us. We have a great human drive to put it off as long as we can (for many these days to the point of locking themselves up in splendid isolation to avoid an unseen virus). But we can't change the final result.

All we control is how we manage and mitigate the perceived risk of each situation we find or put ourselves (and our families) in daily during our lives.
Certain pursuits are highly intolerant of errors, omissions, sloppiness and inattention. Flying airplanes is one of those. I fly because of this; it concentrates my mind and allows (forces?) me to forget about all the other stuff going on in my life for that interval. It is my primary mental outlet. my wife says I am a different person when I come back home after I've been flying, any flying. In other words, the reward is sufficient to repeatedly put myself at that risk in pursuit of it.

That trade off is really the assessment you should try to make, whether it is about flying or any other activity with a perceived adverse outcome. Like motorcycle track racing, skiing avalanche chutes, climbing a 5.13 rock face, or a host of other "crazy" pastimes. :)

A Martin said:
It will never happen to me ... is the common human thought which keeps us driving and flying every time we hear about an accident

...
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But this is the antithesis of why we train, isn't it?
We train because we know and accept "it" can happen to us.
 
I feel like there's some innate tension between "how much I love aviation" and "how much aviation BS I can tolerate"

Seeing friends turned into bags of meat after a crash definitely tips the scales hard right in the above scenario. Insurance, Medicals, Parts and Labor costs, fuel costs... they all have a thumb on the scale.

At some point, you put up that controller ad and grab a boat trader or high times or aarp mag. Whatever seems to be less hassle. Know what? It will be, almost certainly. :D

$0.02
 
Dave Arata said:
I understand many of us in the flying community have lost friends due to accidents and I'm curious how you all process that. I was recently made aware of a fantastic young man, whom I knew well and was the grandson of a good friend, was killed in a crash this past Saturday. On top of that, I was in Coeur d' Alene when the mid-air happened. My wife and I took a flight in that Beaver a few years ago and enjoyed watching it take off at sunset on our way to dinner earlier in the week. Lastly, while in CDA, I found out an acquaintance was killed in a motor glider at my home airport. That's quite a few "close to home" accidents and loss of life in a couple of months. To be honest, it's affected my desire to fly and continue training. What say you?
Click to expand...

I've lived thru the VN conflict, and out lived many of my friends I am wondering how many more?
 
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