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My friend died today in a Husky (taildragger made by aviat) accident taking off from a nearby airport. Witnesses say it was a microburst that hit him from a near by storm (more than 20 nm away though) that was developing to become a big storm.

He was a very good pilot, respected and i admired him for his judgement and excellent care he took in aviation.

I will miss him profoundly. And there are no words to explain what i am feeling for his loss and for the suffering of his family, i am really really touched and said. I had the priviledge of flying from Mexico to oshkosh in a group of pilots and planes with him. Last year i flew with him in a 210 from a friend who also owned the husky with him as partners. This year i flew in a 182 and he flew in his to oshkosh. I had an amazing time with him, and very memorable moments that touched my life.

I am in a bad bad spot today. My family is worried, i am worried and i am also scared.

I am also a husky pilot and i fly often, more than once a week, and i am wondering what should i do with my life in the sky as a pilot that flies for fun. I am worried about my family, their well being and to do my best for them to have his father for a long time. I know life is a risk on its own. I consider myself a good pilot, with good judgement, and good skills and i love to learn and respect the aircraft a lot. I can understand when a pilot makes a bad decision that kills him. But in this case if my friend did a bad judgement call then i am exposed to making a bad judgement call too maybe more than i realized in the past. Sometimes we say that the pilot erred here or there, but in this case i am farily sure that if i was in that place i might have made the same decision, since we both took aviation very seriously and where extremely careful on our judgement calls.

I am positive that the conditions where manageble when he took off and suddently the conditions changed (witnesses state this too). Offcourse their was a nearby storm developing but it was more than 20nm away and i had run away from such things in the past. I know the lesson is easy to learn. But its the unkown that i am worried about.

You might say that our training is different than yours, but think again.. We both trained in the US with FAA Certificates and had taken advanced courses like unusual attitude recoveries in tutima flight school with sean d tucker, aerobatics training, mountain flying, advance STOL techniques with experts, and we studied alot about aviation. Usually we took training with the best of the best.

My family is concerned with my hobby, i love aviation, but i also love my family very very much and i don't want them to suffer everytime i go flying and wonder if i am coming back. To me it was very safe and i knew i was coming back, but then again my friend thought that today too. A car accident would have seen more "Normal" to everyone, event though the outcome might have been the same.

I will still keep my 182 for medium cross country flights, but i am truly thinking on setting the fun flying away. I had deleted two persons in my life from my address book, and both had died in GA related accidents and both in fun flying. I also know of other pilots that where not closed friends that had ate the big one in the past.

I know its risky and i know its not for the fainted heart. I am teared apart from the insite, and i probably shouldn't be writing now in this forum. But i had to talk to someone about it, and someone that understands what i am going thru or at least know my point of view of things.

I guess i am also scared since i know he was a very smart pilot, and was extremely careful. I always say to my self that if i am extremely careful and don't take chances i will be okay. But then again in life sometimes you have to take chances, and in aviation you have to often make gray decisions that are not ether white or black.. They are gray. Go/No go decisions sometimes are made from experience and knowledge, but sometimes you learn something new when you thought you knew... And sometimes learning that something new kills you in a split second. I am sure that my friend had encountered similar scenarios in the past, since he was quite a flyer (he flew more and better than me), and finished the flight with a successful outcome. But not today. And it really didn't seem that bad.

I guess i am scared, because i thought we where careful, thoughtful and methodical in our approach to aviation, i thought that we where doing things the right way, but then i again i see a lot of bozos flying around getting away with their tricks with no accidents.. And then again my careful, experienced and trusted friend and pilot died today.

I love aviation more than anything. I am glider pilot, helicopter pilot, single engine pilot with taildragger endorsement. This does not makes me good, but it gives you an idea on my extent of my passion with aviation and with how much enthusiasm i practice it.

I love my family more than aviation, and i don't want them to live what his family is living with him today. I know that accident's do happen in life, and you can get killed by just walking outside and get hit by lightning. But theres something to the sense of flying that i am sure my family will never forgive me if something happens to me while flying. I often tell my wife that we are not ordinary people, that we are extraordinary people and extraordinary people do extraordinary stuff. And i always tell her that i never fly to kill myself. I allways fly to enjoy and live another day doing it. But then again my good friend died today. And i am sure he thinked the same today.

I often tell my wife that flying its very safe, and that statistics show that its not as bad is it seems, that its similar to motorcycle fatalities and that commercial airplanes are even safer than driving to the airport. But in the past two years, we heard of a lot of accidents that are aviation related. only 2 where friends, the first involve a flight into terrain in IMC conditions while flying VFR into bad conditions. I convinced myself that this could be avoidable with integrity and balls on the judgement part, which is difficult to have in reality, i had done many errors in my aviation life and all ended up in a good lesson of never again. Some mistakes i prefer to avoid by reading and learning from others or simply by common sense.

But this accident today... this particular accident makes me wonder, since i am almost positive that i would have taken the same path my friend took.

Some new students might say that NEVER FLY WITH A STORM NEARBY.
But then again what's the definition of nearby? This storm was further than 20nm off the airport. It was big allright, but nothing we have never seen before or run away from before. It was developing and so he flew to run away back home from it. And in my opinion it was okay and flyable.. NOT SO!. Bad luck? Maybe.. Bad judgement? Maybe.. But it could happen to anyone including you and me!, so the question still stands.

I don't even know what i am asking.. But i do know that you understand me..

Any thoughts or words are very welcome in this hard moments in my life.

I guess its a question that every pilot has and its sometimes scared to admit or ask or often wants to set this aside and think we are immune by some sort of power...

What do you think i should think in this sad moment?

Kiko,

I'm so sorry for the loss of your friend in the accident.

I don't presume to know what caused it, but even if you had chosen the same route, the timing maybe different and the effects of the storm would be varied.

Flying is risky and we try and manage those risks by our training and using good judgement. When that doesn't work, we may have an accident, it's hard to say why they happen. Usually it's a chain of events that leads up to it, knowing when to make a change is as much a part of flying as the actual skills.

Take some time and enjoy your family!

Ron

Hi Kiko,

I am so sorry to hear of your loss. Our best at TFP to his family and to you.

The question that looms in your head is one that faces a lot of us. Risk vs reward. It sounds like you have been in aviation long enough and have the experience to have a solid understanding of what is involved in this passionate hobby of ours. You could tackle both sides of the debate. However, with so much sadness I think your emotion will win. Take some time off, like Ron said, spend it with your family and gain a little distance from the pain. I'm sorry again to hear of your loss. Perhaps this can inspire you to be all the safer and more knowledgeable-the best you can be. Something like this can really inspire us all.

Thank you for sharing your loss and again, my condolences.

anais

Thanks for all the kind words. I really appreciate them all!

Thank you very very much!

You are very welcome,
How are you feeling about aviation?

My heart starts pumping again when i see my husky parked in the hangar, my heart starts pumping again when i see my 182 parked at the hangar.

My medical certificate is good. My licence is good, and my IFR ticket still has fresh paint on it.

I think im still in love with aviation, and im just going to be 100 times fold more carefull than i used to be... But i belong in the sky, theres no doubt about it.... I think my friend would love to hear me say this.


Thanks for asking and caring.

Good to hear you are doing well and that aviation is still in your heart. We'll look forward to hearing about your adventures!


a

Fate truly is the hunter. There's no rhyme or reason to why something like this might happen to a perfectly sound pilot and leave other lesser pilots to keep flubbing their way through the skies.

You can never mitigate all the risks. You just have to decide if the reward is worth it. I think in your later posts you realize that after some time of reflection you can put it behind you and get back in the air. (This is some months later, so you probably already have.)

I find it interesting, though, that when we look at the potential for something like to happen to us, no one ever says "dang, I don't want to be dead." The initial reaction is what our families and friends will feel and we are "pre-saddened" by THEIR loss. I don't have any other comment on that right now, but it's something I've noted.

This is an interesting subject. I think that it is difficult for us to imagine our own death, as it is something that none has experienced, but we can understand what it is to loss a loved one. I believe that this lack of experience of death is what makes us be more afraid of a traffic fine that of death when we speed in our vehicle. We have experienced what it is to be fined, but not to die.

But then there is the responsibility of a father. I am a husband and a father of three small children, and I feel like my life is mine, so I can risk it in order to get a reward (the enjoyment of flying), but it is not fair that I should risk their wellbeing, while only I get the reward. If they are to share the risk, we need to find a way that they get their reward too.

Also, I see death as a neutral thing: lack of enjoyment and lack of suffering (though it would be a loss for me, because I enjoy live so much), but those who remain do get a lot of pain.

Then about the safety: we tend to think that we are prudent and we will make no mistakes, and that's why we worry so much about technical problems, while the reality is that most accidents are due to pilot errors. We will make mistakes, and then there are some things that are beyond our control. It is our duty to make every effort to mitigate risks, but it is hard when we realize that we cannot eliminate them.

I have recently decided to start my PPL training, but for many years I have been holding it because of the risk. In the last times, my motivation to fly has just grown, so I can only hope that nothing bad will happen to me.

GA is definitely more risky than everyday activities like traveling by car, so what can we do? If we decide to go ahead, we have the obligation to do everything possible to mitigate the risks. We should also make our family benefit from aviation, to make the deal more fair, and we need to mitigate the consequences of a loss. I think we could fly a few less hours and use that money to pay for a good life insurance. Money will not substitute a father, but it will at least spare the economic sufferings to those remaining.

Well, all this is a hard question, but we need to face it, especially those with family responsibilities.

Kiko, thank you for sharing your experience with us, and my condolences to you and all who have lost someone in aviation.

_________________
Damià
LEMH