When Stupid is Criminal

Photo courtesy Greenfield District Court

This afternoon, 57-year old Steven Fay will appear in court in Massachusetts to face criminal charges for being supremely stupid, recklessly stupid, deadly stupid. In what some aviation attorneys say is extremely unusual, a private pilot has been indicted for involuntary manslaughter for unintentionally crashing his airplane and killing his daughter.

Charging a grief-stricken man who has lost his child seems on the surface to be a step-too-far.  Further, criminalization of error - including suspicion of bad decision making - is highly controversial and rarely practiced here in the United States though it is a different story in other countries. In Brazil the most well-known recent case was the arrest of two American business jet pilots on a ferry flight over the Amazon jungle, whose wing clipped a Gol Airlines 737 causing it to crash and killing everyone on board. But pilots, mechanics and air traffic controllers have faced jail time in Croatia, France and other countries.

Fay's airplane the night of the crash Photo by Massachusetts State Police

Fay's indictment is notable because it is uncommon for the law to swoop in on general aviation accidents when no intent to cause injury is apparent. In that case it is usually left up to the regulators to act.  


The Federal Aviation Administration did indeed revoke Fay's private pilot's license two months after the accident charging him with "a blatant disregard for the regulations airmen operate under" because he was flying an airplane for which he was not qualified. Fay had only a license to fly single engine aircraft. The FAA also called him "an immediate threat to aviation safety." (On the second charge, I'd quibble with the wording, the immediacy of the threat having already passed.) 

But the actions of Steve Fay seem so out there in terms of imprudence, if someone is going to make a test case of criminalizing stupidity, this seems the guy to go after.

Here's what happened. On New Year's Day one year ago, the New Hampshire native flew his 51-year old, twin-engine Cessna 310 from Keene to Orange Municipal Airport in Massachusetts. With only 50 hours experience in the airplane and with his adult daughter on board, Fay decided to practice touch and go landings at night. The NTSB report says approaching the airport, the plane hit trees before crashing inverted into a creek.  Fay was not seriously injured, but his daughter who did not have her seat belt on because she was looking for a map during the approach, was ejected from the airplane and killed. 


According to the Associated Press, Fay's flight instructor reportedly told authorities he'd repeatedly warned Fay that he was not ready to solo in the 310, which Fay had purchased the previous year. Flight instructor Michael Truman said he felt Fay's "airplane was still too much for him." That Fay ignored not just the FAA regulations but the advice of the person who knew his flying best, was part of what led the district attorney Steve Gagne to seek criminal charges.


"His conduct unfortunately resulted in the tragic death of his own daughter, but it also endangered anyone who happened to be in his flight path," he told me in an email. "Particularly those who live in the residential neighborhoods adjacent to the Orange Airport," Gagne said.

I confess, when I first heard of this case, the fact that the pilot was related to his passenger seemed to argue against a criminal complaint. But Gagne's point, that Fay just as easily could have killed someone else bears consideration. 

Yesterday, as I was riding right seat while my 17-year old son practiced driving stick shift, a SUV in the oncoming lane barreled past and we saw the driver holding her smart phone up at eye level to read as she drove. We did not notice if she had a child in her car, but she could easily have killed mine. 

At what point does law enforcement step in in cases of stupidity?  A court will soon take up that question and it's not a moment to soon.

Safety is My Co-Priority

If you are operating under the impression that air show megastar Sean Tucker confines his fancy maneuvers to his airplane, I'm here to tell you, he does not. Yesterday at the NTSB hearing in Washington, I watched him dazzle a panel of hardened air safety investigators looking into ways to improve air show and air race safety.

"It's not basket weaving 101", he said, all gosh, shucks and boyish charm and the five board members from Mark Rosekind on the left to Earl Weener on the right practically cooed.

But Tucker has a point. In a demonstration of courage and cojones, he was one of only a few of the air show/air race luminaries who testified at the hearing willing to admit that all ain't right in the world of performance aviation.

Well, as Chairman Deborah Hersman said early on, "Danger is part of the attraction." But when 11 people end up dead and dozens more are injured as happened on the final day of the Reno Air Races on September 16, 2011, the usual blandishment that "Safety is our number one priority" no longer seems sincere.

Let's be honest, safety is not the number one priority or all those souped-up planes and hot-shot pilots would be safely on the ground. Thrill seeking is the number one priority for the performers and for the spectators. The question is; can safety be the co-priority in sport aviation?

That's the delicate task for the safety board and the Federal Aviation Administration, recognizing that this kind of aviation is tremendously popular because it taps into our emotions. Air shows recall a pioneering past and demonstrate how innovation is sculpting the future. (And then there are those pilots!)

But the safety folks can't be carried aloft on the winds of good intentions. Real issues, as of yet unaddressed, have been brought to light by the Reno disaster.

Jimmy Leeward, the pilot whose nosediving P-51 turned the box seats at Reno Stead Airport into a scene of carnage, was 74-years old. To fly competitively and undergo the extraordinary physical stresses of air racing, he was required to have just a 3rd class medical certificate, the same sign-off as your basic general aviation pilot.

Then there is the airplane. Leeward's P-51 was as far removed from its original design as the family Ford is from a Formula One race car. And whether airworthiness has been compromised by all that performance-enhancing tinkering can be a difficult question for FAA inspectors to answer authoritatively.

"They can check that things are tightened down and make sure things are properly greased but they can't say that the thing is going to hold together, they don't have the expertise," said Mike Danko, an aviation lawyer from San Mateo, California. Mike spoke with me yesterday while I was working on a story about the hearing for The New York Times.

These omissions speak to the question of pilot hazards and one can argue that the men and women who fly in this environment know what they're getting into.

But it becomes a matter of public concern in the third area into which the NTSB board members tiptoed yesterday; are the setbacks for air show spectators appropriate?

In his testimony, Mike Houghton, chief executive of the Reno Air Race Association was unequivocal, even after Hersman pressed the point, reminding Houghton of a crash on the track at the 2007 Reno air race.

"We looked at debris disbursement and compared it with what had been established," Houghton said, of the set backs established years earlier and how they impacted the safety of race attendees in the 2007 accident. He continued, "and all the calculations were correct. We were 75 feet short of the spectator area. In spite of that we took steps to put Jersey barriers on the other side of the racecourse between taxi and runway to mitigate if something should ever happen again and if debris were to happen it would be stopped by the barriers."

Hersman wasn't the only one raising the figurative eyebrow about the notion that the course of an out-of-control airplane can be predicted. Danko says the premise is fallacious.

"They’ve used geometry and physics to say we’re going to design a course so the aircraft is never pointed at the crowd," he said. "But it's based on a false premise that if it fails in flight it will travel in a straight line. It may not travel in a straight line. It may go out of control. A control surface breaks off it may go in an unpredictable direction."

Predictably, a control surface did appear to come off Leeward's plane which then landed nose down within striking distance of a crowd of spectators. 

Leeward, Tucker and all the other performance pilots are not alone. They share the risks with every thrill-seeker who buys a ticket to an air show. Any industry capable of pushing envelopes like this one does can surely balance mitigating the risks with maintaining the sport. But the first task on the check list is acknowledging the real priorities.

Aviation - This Thing We Love

CRAZY STUFF!
Despite scarey decompressions, a you-can-not-make-this-up event on a commuter flight to New York, the inexplicable but global trend of attacking pilots with lasers, an elevation of rhetoric in politics and in aviation and some truely appalling carrying-on by air travelers who really should know better (Gerard! Alec! Leisha! what got into you?) aviation was blessed this year with many, many happy landings.


SAFE FLIGHTS!

Let's start with the publication of the International Air Transport Association's new statistics that show commercial aviation around the world has never been safer.

Statistics being slippery, I don't normally tout this kind of thing, but Gunther Matschnigg IATA's safety guru makes the point that this is the continuation of an ongoing decline in air accidents and cites success in getting regulators and airlines to participate in standardized operational audits and sharing of safety information; learning from each other being a key factor in aviation safety.


NEW PLANES!

The Dreamliner in Addis Ababa in December

Two new airplanes took to the skies in 2011, the much redesigned and ever lovely B747 and the B787 Dreamliner, which may have seemed more like fantasy than dream after years of delay actually getting the airplane off the ground.

Capt. Desta Zeru flew the 787 into Addis Ababa

But what the hey? All seemed to be forgiven in Japan when All Nippon Airways' first 787 arrived in October (and was then promptly smashed into a boarding bridge).  Equally enthusiastic crowds greeted the 787's arrival in Addis Ababa in December. Ethiopian Airlines didn't actually take posession of the airplane, but one of their pilots did make history by left-seating it into the continent on its 'round the world tour. 

MERGER MANIA!

British Airways/Iberia, LAN Chile/TAM, Continental/United, Southwest/AirTran all tied the knot in 2011. And while setting up housekeeping together is working more easily for some than for others, take my mother-in-law's advice and remember, good marriages aren't built in a day.  Here are some other kinda love stories that kept the drama up at airports around the globe.

And if that's not enough kissy-kissy for you, the short-lived TV show Pan Am offered sexy story lines and prompted former Pan Am employees to reminisce about the glory days to the delight of many of us.

SWEET DREAMS!
After years and years of mind-numbing talk about pilot flight duty times, the Federal Aviation Administration finally issued a proposed a rule that should provide some needed shut-eye for pilots. Airline pilots anyway. Cargo pilots seem to be left to fend for themselves with the sandman and flight attendants, mechanics and air traffic controllers aren't part of the rule either, so this issue is far from ready to be put to bed.

GOOD NEWS FROM BAD TIMES!
There were glimmers of good news emerging from the terrible earthquake and tsunami in Japan in March. Pilot Jim Karsh, who flies frequently into Japan generously kept FLYING LESSONS readers updated in the immediate aftermath. My friend and correspondent, Takeo Aizawa was gracious enough to provide  small details of how aviation was faring in Japan in the weeks that followed. I chose to see these reports as glimmers of hope for a  better tomorrow.

ALL THE BLESSINGS OF FLYING
When I thank God for the blessings of the year just past, I include these personal highlights:

• opportunities to watch airplanes, from the great vantage points at airports or airport hotels in Orlando, Chicago, Copenhagen, Bangkok and Dubai.

Steve Guenard takes me flying in N7995

• My experience flying above Manhattan with acrobatic pilot John Klatt, and touring Utah from a beautifully restored Stearman with Steve Guenard at the controls.

• The magnificent sight of a "pilot's halo"viewed while flying above the clouds on a Lufthansa A340. 

Most of all dear readers, I'm thankful to YOU for making FLYING LESSONS a part of your day and contributing your ideas, critiques and comments to make better this thing we love called flying. Happy New Year.

UPDATE on Passenger Removals and Hawaii Heroes

One never knows when a good story will result in a tip that leads to another and this week I've had a double dose.  After writing on my travel blog GO HOW about how arbitrary the decisionmaking can be when it comes to removing passengers from airplanes, I received accounts from three separate sources that just baffle me.

Saying that his recent removal from a Finnair flight was embarrassing (I have no doubt) business class passenger - let's call him Hannu - had to purchase another ticket and was not reimbursed for his original fare of €2800. I wasn't there and I don't know Hannu, but he claims the episode began when he complained to a flight attendant about a delay. 

"Now you will think that I probably behaved like a drunk or a rebel, but that is not at all the case," he wrote to me. "I complained one time about the delay to a flight attendant, in a polite manner, not loud, not using any foul language or body gestures."

Hannu says this was his third time on this particular flight and the third time the flight was delayed. The previous delays had resulted in his luggage not being transferred to his onward connection, so he was naturally concerned.  

I can't weight in here with an opinion about who was right in this situation and I'm still waiting to hear back from Finnair, but according to Hannu when he registered a complaint about being taken off the plane he was  told that the airline has "the right to remove any passenger if he makes the staff or other customer feel uncomfortable."  

Well, yeah, they do. But there must be some standard, even internal to the company to prevent such apparent injustices as Hannu's tale and the other one that came to me this week. 

Two separate readers - strangers to each other but both on a United flight from Portland to Chicago tell a remarkably similar story about what happened to them on Tuesday, on the very day my article on the subject of passenger evictions appeared in The New York Times.

As these two men - one a lawyer the other a retiree - tell the story, as they waited for their flight to take off from Portland International Airport, the passenger I'll call Mike, complained to the flight attendant that the public address system was uncomfortably loud and asked that she lower the volume. 

After walking to the front of the plane she  "returned stating that nothing could be done and that if passengers were concerned about hearing damage that the plane could return to the gate and that those passengers could deplane,"  according to a man who was seated in front of Mike.

Where Mike clearly erred was in replying to this obviously harried flight attendant that he was "merely asking" if she could lower the volume because the plane did return to the gate and four United employees took Mike off. 

Further, those passengers objecting to this treatment including my other correspondent, the retiree, were told that they could be ejected too.  I am told a chorus of "Nos" greeted the flight attendants announcement that Mike was being removed -- a voice vote that many passengers objected to the action, but perhaps also attributable to fears of the delay that this action would inevitably cause. After all, the airplane was already taxiing when the pilot turned it around.

In conclusion, the retiree told me he felt intimidated by the flight attendant's threat and described the atmosphere on the plane saying, "It is difficult to describe the feeling of powerlessness that we felt in this situation."

I realize we are talking about 68 million people every day who board an airplane somewhere in the world. There are going to be a few crackpots in the lot. But let's talk turkey here. 

As they move us from place to place, airlines are responsible for assuring  security and providing a civil environment. Their role now, teetering as it does on giving single employees the power to be both judge and jury is dangerous territory. 

Passengers, my message to you is this: YOU ARE responsible for behaving to a high standard and you have a right to expect the same of your fellow travelers. Airlines:  YOU ARE responsible for hiring capable people and training them to use  common sense and good judgment. When they fail to do so, YOU ARE responsible for removing those employees from the airplane. 'Nuff said.

After blogging here about the ditching of a Cessna 310 off the coast of Hawaii and the Coast Guard's amazing video tape of their rescue of pilot Charles Brian Mellor, a reader of Flying Lessons made me aware of the role played by Denne Hoover of  the Federal Aviation Administration who was working at the NORAD Command Center last Friday afternoon when the ferry pilot's worried call first came in. Mellor reported that he might run out of fuel short of his destination.

My correspondent's account (below) has been confirmed by the FAA, so I share it with you, adding that of her participation in the event, Ms. Hoover modestly insisted she was simply part of a team effort. 

"The actual credit for the save belongs with Ms. Denee (sic) Hoover. She is the FAA rep who works in the NORAD Command Center. The pilot realized far more than 500 miles out he wouldn't make it and didn't have the gas to turn around. Ms. Hoover alerted me, the Command Center Director, and we alerted the folks in Hawaii. That action on her part gave the Coast Guard team the time to react.


This is not to take away from what the Coasties did on their end, but that pilot would definitely have been in the water for some time if not for the 3 hours lead time Ms. Hoover gave the rescue team to get in place and make the intercept. 


No one will likely ever know or care about what really happened behind the scenes, but those of us on duty that night know the truth, and the real hero here is Ms. Denee Hoover, FAA professional."

I'll argue that many people do want to know the back story and I thank my reader for sharing these details with all of us.

All's Quiet on the Eastern Front - A Day Without Airplanes

Photo courtesy Republic Airport

A sky as blue as one found in a child's storybook greeted the New York City area after Hurricane Irene, but missing from the picture early this morning was the normally ubiquitous presence of airplanes. To people living in this region - home to three major commercial airports and four major airports for business, charter and general aviation - the last time aviation shut down to this extent was September 11, 2001.

Sure, Irene had the airlines cancelling thousands of flights - running 24/7 they've got experience and manpower to handle it. (See this spooky shot of JFK Airport from Frank Van Haste's blog here.) When it comes to business and general aviation, it's the very unusual scenario that has them packing up and flying out of town.

The exodus began late last week and increased in intensity as the weather forecasts became more dire.
Planes were ferried to Pennsylvania and upstate New York and to anywhere their owners could find hangar space. "We didn't now how bad it was going to be, so we wanted to be sure we were prepared," said Michael Geiger, airport director at Republic Airport in Farmingdale, New York, which is home to more than 500 mostly single and twin engine piston aircraft.

Photo courtesy Republic Airport

Though Geiger didn't know how many, a number of planes were flown to inland airports. Shortly before our conversation this morning, five of the planes belonging to the flight school of Farmingdale State College had returned.

They were not so lucky at Teterboro Airport, just nine feet above sea level, the airport remained closed today as workers tried to clean up. The plan is to open the airport tomorrow. Wisely, there were no airplanes left on the ramp during the storm, and damage was confined to the airport.

Thirty-five miles northeast, Westchester County Airport is busy, busy, busy taking the flights intended for the New Jersey airport and closing the short runway - 11/29 - so that the planes destined for Teterboro have a place to park while waiting for the airport to reopen.

Photo by and with permission of Steve Ferguson

Good thing then, that the most dramatic post-Irene activity happened earlier today when three touring World War II warbirds belonging to the Collings Foundation departed after their annual visit to the airport went soggy. Airport executive and aviation enthusiast, Steve Ferguson was out on the airfield seeing them off and taking photos of the P-51 Mustang, the B-24 Liberator and B-17 Flying Fortress, all of which were in town for the annual Wings of Freedom visit.

Photo by and with permission of Steve Ferguson

Ordinarily, when the planes are here, the foundation sells walk-through tours, flight experiences and even flight training.  But on Saturday, when it became a wash-out, Landmark Aviation one of the FBOs at the airport did some shuffling in its hangar. "Landmark Aviation was very gracious to move some planes around in their hangars to make room," said Hunter Chaney marketing director for the foundation.


 Westchester is my local airport and I am accustomed to hearing the general aviation and regional traffic, so as I took my early morning walk it was odd to see the perfect flying conditions and hear everything but airplanes; the birds, the leaf blowers, the chain saws and the electric generators were all making their post-hurricane music, but I need not have worried. The corporate jets started making their presence known before I had my morning coffee and as I write this blog, even the noisy Piaggio is back.

It's a Ghost Town at Airports on the Northeast Coast

Photo of HPN on Saturday by Chuck Allen

Some of  America's most active business airports would be - should be, having one of their most active weekends on this, the last weekend before the Labor Day holiday. Instead they look like this desolate scene at Westchester County Airport in White Plains, New York.

In anticipation of Hurricane Irene, Westchester, Republic and Teterboro are reporting airfields that have become ghost towns. My friend, Chuck Allen, a pilot and member of the Westchester Flying Club spend part of Saturday afternoon watching a lot of takeoffs...and no landings...as people moved their airplanes out of the path of the hurricane. 

"When it comes to weather, pilots usually pay attention," Chuck told me in an email after writing to share with me the very odd sight of these normally hectic airports with all but tumbleweeds rolling down the airfield by this evening. 

"Probably 70-80% of the planes normally parked at Panorama were not there," Chuck reported, referring to Panorama Flight Service, one of the fixed base operators at Westchester County.

Ian, working in the operations office at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, wouldn't even take a guess at how many planes were moved elsewhere in preparation for the storm, but he's the one who characterized the place as a "ghost town" this evening.

Photo of HPN on Saturday by Chuck Allen

Its not much of a stretch to imagine that general aviation and business airports from North Carolina to Massachusetts were also sending planes out at a steady clip. I'm guessing anyone inland with hangar space to spare has been approached by friends, friends-of-friends, and probably even complete strangers asking if - by squeezing and shuffling - more room could be made to put another airplane or two indoors.

"The airplanes on the field are either in hangars or tied down with tiedown hooks in the pavements," I was told by the operations officer at Republic Airport in Long Island, which will shut down if and when winds reach a sustained 65mph. 

In an email to members of the Meetup group for Northeast Pilots, Clark Burgard offered a number of helpful tips to airplane owners; including using ropes with some elasticity to allow for shock absorption and reminders to secure step ladders and chocks as well as planes. That small stuff can do big damage when it gets tossed around the airfield by high winds. Clark moved his plane to Rochester,  New York on Friday, an airport he chose because "it was out of the way of the storm, even if Irene tracked more inland."  

The last commercial flight to Westchester County Airport arrived at 6:00 p.m. Saturday and the airport will remain closed until Monday at 3:00 p.m., reflecting optimism that for all the wind and rain, Irene will not create lingering problems. Life back to normal by end of the day on Monday? We shall see.