To whom it may concern:
The pilot killed on May 11,2018 in Parker,Colorado is my husband. I would ask that you all think twice about posting off the cuff comments. He had a long run up because it was the first flight after the plane's annual. My husband flew commercial that evening, picked the plane up from Arapahoe Aero and planned to fly back home to Grand Junction. He was a very accomplished pilot with extensive ifr flying time. It was vfr conditions when he took off. This crash is still under investigation.
Hello Birdie. My deepest condolences on your loss.
Apologies if my analysis seemed “off the cuff”, I assure you, having flown at Centennial for two decades, they were not.
That was one of the fastest weather changes in daylight from VFR to Low IFR I’ve seen in all of that time, and my questions about the weather change, the long run up, and other items, I assure you, were genuine, and not intended an insinuation of anything improper. I appreciate your information about the maintenance.
As you know, as pilots we have to have the ability to self-criticize and analyze each flight for what we could have done better. We do it to accidents, too.
This accident gave me enough questions as to what really happened that I drove over to Parker two days later and walked the field behind the house myself, trying to imagine the radar flight path overlaid on the terrain there to see if I could glean any insights as to what the pilot, your late husband, may have been seeing, thinking, or attempting, in those final moments.
Much of the post here was to share what “normal” procedures are at Centennial with those who don’t live and fly here.
Above all, may I please say that I would rather your husband were still with us. All we may hope for at this point is to learn from whatever the investigators find, and in my case, to hopefully teach the next generation of pilots as well as I possibly can, so a similar fate will not befall them.
Please let us know if there’s anything we can do for you. I can stand at the front door of my hangar and see the front hangar door at Arapahoe Aero and they’ve worked on my airplane. The aircraft went down just a few miles from my home.
This accident was, as they say, “too close to home”. The (over) analysis is simply me trying to figure out the same questions we all always have. “Why?”
Again, my deepest condolences and apologies if anything in the discussion trying to explain the usual procedures at Centennial, was misinterpreted as critical. The tone was intended as informative about local procedures and honestly questioning about the questions contained therein.
