Back Shop: Industry Insights

Just by the title, many of you have an idea of what I am talking about. The phone call I am referring to is the one that you get after an aircraft has crashed. A subject that no one likes to talk about, but we all read the reports. The loss of someone close is emotional. But how does it affect the aircraft mechanic?

It was 11:30 on a Saturday evening. I was getting ready for bed when the phone rang. I looked at the caller ID — it was a customer. That afternoon I had finished four hours of test flying their aircraft and returned the Cessna to their airport. The owner was planning on doing some flight instruction after I delivered the plane. I was expecting the engine to have an oil leak or something trivial. No. The husband was calling me to tell me that his wife had been involved in an accident. My heart stopped. Not even thinking that anyone was seriously injured, I started to ask a million questions. That is when he told me that his wife and the student had burned to death in the accident. This person was a good friend, a customer and a very big part of my business. I was absolutely devastated. I turned to my wife and told her the story. She was in tears.

The next morning, I made up my mind to see the husband and the accident sight. It was a long drive so I had time to go through everything that I had done on the aircraft. I was convinced that it was not my fault. When I walked into their FBO, I was shocked by the amount of people that were there. It seemed that everyone from the state was there to pay homage. The pilot was well-loved and paved the road for many women in the aviation industry. As I walked in, I overheard the conversations.

Most of them blamed the mechanic, which I happened to be. I felt paper-thin. I joined the conversations anonymously. By the time I walked out of the FBO I was convinced that I screwed up and had just killed my friend and the student. I stumbled down the stairs and looked at my truck. I had a flat tire. I needed to get the hell out of there and I had a flat tire! My chance to run had evaporated. While changing my tire, another mechanic approached me. He was the only one that knew that I had worked on the aircraft, other than her husband. Just like all of the other conversations that were going on in the FBO, he said that it had to be mechanical because, "she was just too good of a pilot to make a mistake." I was in a very awkward position. I was the youngest one in the crowd and I had just killed a local hero and good friend. Oh, and did I mention that the student happened to be an eighty-year-old man that wanted to "learn how to fly before he died." It was his first flight.

I sped over to the accident sight. As I approached the sight, a wave of nausea hit me. I could see news reporters, FAA, NTSB and spectators. I sat in my truck for a minute and tried to get a glimpse of the wreckage. No luck, I had to get out. I wiped the moisture from my eyes and put on my professional face. I walked swiftly to the person wearing the NTSB jacket. I professed to him, "I am the mechanic that was maintaining the aircraft and I think this is my fault. Are you going to arrest me today?" The NTSB investigator chuckled softly. "Why?" he asked. I just shrugged my shoulders and told him that I just overhauled the engine, and performed the annual inspection. He stuck out his hand and introduced himself and said, "You didn’t kill anyone."

The investigator led me over to the aircraft. I noticed that there was not much left after the fire. I stopped and looked down. My shoe had rested on top of the pilot’s burned sandal. I jumped over to the side and fell next to the engine. The investigator helped me up and proceeded to tell me what he had found. The only parts that you could recognize were the vertical stabilizer and the engine. The fire had burned so hot, it consumed all of the aluminum. He pointed out that all of the systems had positive continuity, including the engine.

When he finished giving me the tour, he told me that this was not my fault. I broke down and felt a tremendous relief. I told him about my relationship with the pilot. He swiftly moved me away from the aircraft and said that if he had known that I was so close to the pilot, he would not have let me see the site. I shook his hand and he said, "Remember this is not your fault, and if you have any questions give me a call." I did call him, probably twenty times. Each time I came up with another way that it could be my fault. Each time he squashed my theory with loads of expertise and the facts.

A year later I ordered the NTSB file for this accident. They removed the engine and had sent it to Continental for inspection and Cessna had put in a report about the airframe. The whole report was six inches thick. After reading it all several times, I felt a little better. You never get over anything like this; it just gets a little easier with time.