Another airplane crash in our community begets another quest for the why. ATC recordings, ADS-B bread crumbs, local news sources refreshed beyond belief. We all comb through whatever sources we can in an effort to piece together a puzzle that will be missing a few pieces for a while (or forever), and without any doubt, the why regarding this quest for the why will be the same. “To learn from the mistakes of others.”
Some may question the pilot’s abilities to pilot in the fateful flight, and statistics will substantiate that stereotype. Fairly recently certified pilot, fairly recent airplane acquisition…these stories unfortunately continue to write themselves.
In the case of this latest accident, our individual investigations found that the fateful flight had two souls on board, the owner/pilot and a pilot in training building time. Some have said the pilot does this regularly, supplementing frequent trips in his aircraft while giving others an opportunity to gain experience. That and his frequent involvement in our local aviation community would paint a picture of a thoughtful, caring person who surely will be missed for a long time.
With two pilots (regardless of experience) on board, one might wonder if any briefing between the two, as to define roles of Pilot in Command, Pilot Flying, and Pilot Monitoring was completed. Surely, in the 121 (read: airline) world, this is done every flight. Detailed recounts of standard procedures and the division of roles during anticipated and unanticipated threats and emergencies reinforces months of training, backing up a bitter reality of countless accidents where two (or more) pilots allowed an airplane to fly into places or positions beyond the capabilities of both to recover from.
I’ve flown in a handful of privately owned aircraft similar to the one in this accident, and while I clearly have not completed any Cirrus training, there’s one thing I notice varying between all these owner/operators, and a briefing as discussed above, in addition to the briefing on the use and applicability of the airframe parachute system (and the requisite removal of the arming pin) are a few of those variances.
Back to the why, we continue to focus on the deceased and their why. Clear blue skies fit for the air show to follow the next day seem less daunting than other recent accidents, but perhaps that reduced attention needed to cope with challenging weather brought the pilot in command’s guard down and let complacency set in motion a chain of events that begets the hunt for the why. A busy traffic pattern surely brings additional threats into the equation, however in an airplane more outfitted with various safety systems to help visualize this treat (and many others) one would wonder how the why occurred. Let alone the reality that our skies have become even more saturated with traffic, traffic that I’m certain these pilots are quite familiar with.
Short of an unknown mechanical irregularity or a million other statistically impractical things that may have transpired, our why continues to focus on what they did wrong. And many of us aren’t phrasing our motivations or conclusions from our hunt for the why in that manner publicly, but internally we are.
We tell ourselves that this is all in an effort for us to avoid repeating the same yet we know that the likelihood of one individual action being the real why is nil. The root cause of every aviation accident is a sequence of events that sometimes spans beyond the timelines written in green-paged logbooks. We’ll sit here and tell ourselves there’s no reason why an airplane should have crashed violently into the lake below on a day like this, but the bitter reality is there unfortunately is a reason.
We’ll continue to delve into the why, and the usual social media experts will turn their speculations into subscriptions, steering the court of public opinion to focus on their why (and their QR codes and Patreon pages). Others will add the recent tragedy to their data that airplane x is unsafe, as are the pilots that own and fly them. A few will mourn the loss of a friend, family, or fellow aviator. Some may even question their abilities as an aviator, and few may even walk away from their passions for flight.
Tragedies such as this one become inflection points in pilots taking an introspective moment to assess their skills, potentially modifying aeronautical decision making processes. Those who do so negate the near infinite opportunities elsewhere in time to do the same. Perhaps in those moments we ponder the errant ways of our own kind, we negate the reality that there’s nothing different between us and them prior to their fateful flight. I for one have felt that in the few accidents that have kept me awake at night, many times trying to articulate my thoughts into words like these.
I know that there’s always more to the story. I know there’s not one piece of equipment, one safety stand down, one small change in our daily lives as aviators that can rid the world of accidents like these. What I do know is that there’s always an opportunity to learn and grow, and to continue to hone our skills (both physical and mental) that will without a doubt put the odds in our favor as we wage war against the forces keeping us on the ground. I’m reminded of one of my first chief pilots who told me on my first day in college, “The day I learn nothing after a flight is the day I quit flying.”
My hope is my love for flying can be matched by a similar passion for learning.
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