Final Landing

Jay,

I worked with a guy some years ago who did accident investigation and
who said to me that he felt that over 10% of g.a. accidents were
suicides (that seemed a bit high to me). Interestingly, there have
only been two inflight breakups of Cessna 150s in history. One was in
the '70s when I worked part time flying freight at Willow Run airport.
A guy who had been turned down for a job flying DC-6s rented a 150,
climbed to 10,000 feet over Willow Run while talking with controllers
and telling them to clear everyone out of the area. He then dove
vertically at the west ramp (in front of what was then the tower). The
airplane started shedding parts at about 500 feet AGL. Two days later
I had a trip and went into one of the large hangars (the old B-24 final
assembly hangars - it's a fascinating airport) to preflight the
airplane I was to fly. The accident investigation had been done and
the wreckage was piled in a corner near the 402 I was to fly, so I took
a moment to look at the wreckage. Everything was badly mangled. The
thing that got my attention was that the engine evidently impacted
straight down at extremely high speed as all of the cylinders were bent
forward about 30 degrees.

Sad events, when someone commits suicide with an airplane - and
incidentally hurts all of the rest of us by driving up the accident
rate and perceived level of safety. Worked on one many years ago where
a young man had a serious alcohol problem and his marriage was breaking
up, wife having filed for divorce. He was a private pilot. One
afternoon he showed up at a local FBO seeking to rent an airplane. The
receptionist could tell he was drunk, so she told him, correctly, that
he had to have a checkout with an instructor to rent their airplanes.
She then said the schedule was full for that day and the next, but
she'd put him down for the third day. He declined and staggered out.
Apparently badly depressed, he continued drinking and took some
downers, then after dark, called his best friend from a pay phone and
said he was drinking and taking downers because his life was in ruin
and that he was going to go steal an airplane and commit suicide.
Evidence observed later was that he broke into the same FBO, took the
keys to a 152 and flew it about 5 miles to where it was found having
impacted the bank of a canal in a nearly vertical attitude. The young
man's body was inside. Interestingly, the grieving widow did find an
attorney who filed a lawsuit alleging the altimeter "had to have been
defective, otherwise he would have seen he was close to the ground and
wouldn't have crashed". It went away as soon as the attorney was shown
the blood-alcohol level of the pilot and learned of the phone call made
to the best friend.

There was another where an aircraft broker was supposed to be in one
city closing a deal on the sale of some used airplanes, for which a
very large sum of money had been entrusted to him to hold as a deposit.
At the moment he was to be at the meeting, he was impacting the ground
in a steep dive some 500 miles away, going in the opposite direction,
while calling to the controllers that he was having contol
difficulties. Post crash, the deposit money he was supposedly holding
(and which was to be transferred at the closing) could not be found,
but he had sent a letter to a friend asking him to look after his
family if something should happen to him. That one certainly appeared
to be a suicide, but made me wonder how many are planned so as to cover
up the fact they are suicides. The other ones that puzzle me are
pilots who get into minor emergencies (is that an oxymoron? g) and
then do nothing, either freeze up or decide their time has come and
just sit and watch. I don't know how many accidents of twin engine
airplanes I've looked at where the pilot lost one engine but did
absolutely nothing about securing and feathering the dead engine (or
sometimes even retracting the gear). The prop control was found in the
cruise or max high rpm setting after the crash, rather than having been
pulled into the feather position.

Sad subject for the first nice weather morning we've had in a while.
Warmest regards,
Rick