In Support Of Our Pilots - TAMING PSEUDO SLEUTHS

In Support Of Our Pilots.
Taming Pseudo Sleuths.

"The First Black Astronaut, Ronald McNair, was killed January 28, 1986 when the space shuttle ‘Challenger’ exploded moments after lift off. McNair's death together with five other astronauts forced a fervent investigation into the cause of the disaster. In the end, investigators summed up the findings thus: NASA had "abandoned good judgment... and..common sense.."
Maina Hatchison explains.

THE FIRST BLACK ASTRONAUT IN SPACE was Guion Bluford. He flew Challenger August 30, 1983 - September 5, 1983 . Ronald McNair was not going to space for the first time on that fateful 1986 flight. He had previously flown up with Challenger February 3 - 11, 1984 .

By transferring to astronaut status, Guion and McNair had subscribed to the elite league of celestial explorers. Both knew that attainment of escape velocity in compacted capsules was as good as pawning one's life to the aerial graveyard. American and Soviet cosmonauts had been cremated at the starting blocks of the space race. Nonetheless, both had opted to avail themselves to the call of duty to mankind, did their nation proud and attained legendary mention as individual and diaspora achievers. Suffering death as consequence of precarious duty had that immortalizing ornate status.

Few people remember that the first man in space Yuri Gagarin died of an aircraft accident.

Gagarin died aged 34 when the MiG-15 he was piloting crashed March 27, 1964 near Moscow . Gagarin - only 27 years old when he made the first ever space flight - was training for a second space mission. That his MiG-15 crashed on home ground wasn't as puzzling as the fact that he was an experienced fighter pilot conversant with emergency drills. With rank of Colonel, the import of his demise to the aviation world could not have been ranked higher.

Just when the military world was trying to solve this Russian puzzle, American ( Nashville ) country singer Jim Reeves crashed in his own private airplane July 31, 1964 .

This ballad, country pop and gospel singer made his name, fame and epitaph in the same Nashville neighborhood. Even before he matured into a full time recording artist, Jim Reeves was already a household name for his DJ, program hosting and news-casting with local radio stations. For his music, he was more popular in Britain , Europe and Africa than America . Most of his fans in Africa thought he was British because of his tonal and non-accented diction. Still, few of his Kenyan fans of the 70's and 80's knew they were listening to lyrics of an airplane crash victim.

Thus 1964 claimed one of the world's top military pilots in Yuri Gagarin, and, broke a new threshold with the death of civilian Jim Reeves in his private capacity. For Muscovites and Nashville villagers, the loss of these two icons was too much to worry whether they were caused by pilot error or otherwise. In fact, when NASA - America 's National Aeronautics and Space Agency - finally put Apollo 11 on the moon, one of the first duties for Armstrong and Aldrin was to honor Gagarin and all astro/cosmonauts that had perished in spacecraft. We should not forget - and without prejudice - that the Apollo 11 duo were actually honoring former fighter pilots across the political divide. This was as gracious as it was magnanimous.

Given that Gagarin didn't get killed in a spectacular space mission or launch pad explosion, the media spin was rather muted. It mattered little what had caused the cosmonaut's death for hyped commentary would still have supposed that Gagarin's flight had been sabotaged by the KGB - why didn't he eject et cetera - to stop him defecting West. Regardless, a military investigation must have been carried out not to ascertain how Gagarin died but why the aeroplane he was flying crashed. No death certificate enters 'air crash' as cause of death. That is a Coroner's verdict.

That a report on the ‘Challenger’ explosion carried a vague ' poor judgement or common sense’ rider was neither indictment nor censure. Those who care to read and peruse NASA investigative reports know that every facet of shuttle inventory was recalled for reassessment and slotted missions put on hold. McNair’s death relative to inspiration of the African diaspora - for whose memory we paste this whole write up - was not in vain. To paraphrase a famous quote, 'the price of true success is eternal vigilance’.

That commercial airliner accidents are rare makes any jetliner incident or accident a news item. Psychiatrists say media has an inbuilt vulture-like ‘intimacy with disaster’. Operators with good news are shunned or asked to pay for it as advertiser supplements. Disasters are printed free, sold to mint, and, regardless of brand damage. A pattern had to develope over the years that for want of an immediate therapy to kin of victims in shock or denial, tactical heists to fashion an immediate culprit become handy. Since investigations and inquiries take time to set up and adduce professional evidence, blaming pilots became a rule-of-thumb initial trump card.

Aircraft accidents are not about pacifying deceased mourners. This is a crude statement but true for the record. Investigations home in on establishing the chronology of failed aerodynamic inconsistencies particular to such flight resulting in the aircraft’s disintegration.

For example, even if pilots succeeded in avoiding birds when rigged for landing configuration, such birds would disappear with no tell-tale wake to be captured by non-existent flight recorders. Black boxes – as they are called by the media – are not always required by law to be carried on most flights as standard equipment. A successful avoidance of such birds may have forced a stall with injury or death for passengers and crew.

Cross winds – and wind shears - at touch down thresholds leave no markers. If an airplane was turned upside down – and they have been – by freak crosswind, shaken passengers might steal a line to blame it on a ‘half-baked rich kid- pilot who has forgotten his math!’ Little would be said about the fact that pilots only get wind speed and direction readings at controlled aerodromes. At uncontrolled aerodromes, they have to rely on Beaufort scale estimations from the occasional windsock or effects on distant trees, wind lanes over water fairways, or, dust-smoke drift. If a pilot encountering gusting wind decides to hold in the air for it to subside, impatient passengers would be surprised to see other pilots landing.

If a secondary emergency were to force the pilot to override this holding caution to attempt a landing off a devils alternative, any subsequent failure to execute a safe landing would be dismissed as pilot error off crosswind reports gleaned from meteorological data. People who have lost loved ones would not welcome a company explanation that not only has each and every airplane got its maximum crosswind component limitations but that a secondary emergency had left the pilot without option but to attempt a precarious landing. Once dead, none would be there to explain that secondary emergency.

The same applies to airplanes involved in engine-failure-after-takeoff (EFATO) accidents. Civilians witnessing or hearing survivors relate to the popular press that the pilot made no effort to turn back to the field ‘given the good weather’ would not have the added advantage of understanding why an EFATO pilot cannot turn back to runway of departure yet the explanation is basic high school science.

Since an aeroplane uses both wings to create maximum lift on climb out, instinctive reflex - after losing all engine power - simply forces the pilot to lower the nose, select a suitable landing area in his/her immediate forward area and glide to a forced landing for lack of favorable altitude.

Should a pilot try to turn back in a tight circle to the runway, one wing would turn in a wider arc than the other. Discrepancies in lift ratios would exert the outward wing to excess lift while the inner wing would simultaneously stall for deficiency of lift. That is how EFATO airplanes end up on top of buildings that may have been recently erected at the extended takeoff direction of a busy runway. Assumptions that a pilot failed to execute a landing or alight clear of such barriers because he was drunk is aviation heresy.

Example enough!

Glider flying was pioneered 1891 by German mechanical engineer Otto Lilienthal. By 1894 he had made such progress in flight that he decided to experiment on making wide 360 degree turns by shifting his body on the direction he wished to go. On such an experiment August 9, 1896, a sharp breeze caught his airborne craft at 50ft, stalled and crashed violently. As if to answer the question whether it hadn’t been fool handy to fly turns with chance gusts - pilot error - his last words were; ‘sacrifices have to be made’. He died next day. It became prophetic. Many pilots have long since perished for sacrifices only known to those they worked for. Indeed, that is why military pilots bury deceased colleagues with full honors regardless of speculation peddled against their repute by uncaring scribes.


Local civil aviation authorities backed by aerodrome security and police units seal accidents sites to stop contamination of evidence. This is always erroneously interpreted as ‘having something to hide’. Aircraft manufacturers also rush to the scene of any crash involving a recently commissioned model. They don’t rush to incriminate but to register logistical support to all investigating teams. For craft and pilot loss, insurance and societal empathy can be handled apart from the primary ideal of preventing further incidents particular to the aircraft type.

When the Boeing 747 was put to service late 1960’s, a lot of pessimists decried the idea of a B747 crashing with its awesome payload equal to an entire medium sized high school. However the workhorse proved versatile in both its passenger and cargo models.

The first major accident involving a B747 happened in Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta (Embakasi) airport on November 20, 1974. Lufthansa Flight 540 - registration D-ABYB - had plunged to the ground shortly after take off.

The Nairobi accident invited unprecedented interest. For a week, D-ABYB (Delta – Yankee Bravo) became synonymous with Nairobi airport. Investigations were later concluded and results published. Pilots were blamed outright for ‘inactivated slats’ and the hydraulics that go along with it. 59 people perished. What the aviation world wanted explained – by the pilot league - was why such a minor detail yet as crucial as to down a Jumbo could have been overlooked on a dual read- back rollout, worse, whether a warning for inactivated slat had been installed at the design stage. Either way, the ink dried or Yankee Bravo interest fizzled.

Not all accidents can be expected to touch base with such conclusive realism. Some classic others have been clouded with political mist and executive power play. Over time, senior military and cargo pilots appear condemned into occupational blackmail the moment they attain the coveted bars. Making Captain from First Officer or Second Officer ‘oiler’ is ordaining oneself into corporate conformity. Somewhere along the line of duty, covert trade-in could suffice. When such perish, little can be expected to be unveiled about the stakes of their specific missions.

It would even appear that some pilots were fashioned by fate to die ungraciously. Even in death they were not honored for precarious service to their motherland. One of the least unheralded feats of World War II was heroism displayed by glider pilots on both Axis and Allied fronts.

Glider pilots had the peculiar indignity of not being equipped with parachutes like other power pilots. The media has perennially painted glider flying in the hobby barnstorming lingo of silent one-man flyers yet war gliders carried as many as 20 - 40 troops and supplies under hostile fire. Germany ’s Me 321 – largest ever – carried 200 troops. The American CG4A cost $20,000 each. 14,000 CG 4A gliders saw combat duty yet were sold for $75 only as war surplus. They were simply towed thousands of miles over land and waters only for the towrope to be cut by drop order. If the glider pilot delayed for a quarter more than the tow pilot could count, the power pilot simply cut his tow end. The glider passengers and cargo were supposed to be put down with precision on the appointed field the pilot had been briefed for.

A glider is a non-powered aircraft. Gliding is the combination of gravity propulsion (downward) and creation of lift (upward), which defines a slanting descent to the ground without option of going round again for lack of engine propulsion. When superiors selected military landing zones, the glider pilots were simply towed above such field and rope cut.

From unknowing ground observers, an approaching glider was just one more crabbing aeroplane flown by awkward pilots. Few knew that glider piloting was a do or die contract. Pilots acquitted themselves gallantly though not without needless cost to human life. Sometimes the tow plane itself had to ditch with its pilots ejecting. Glider pilots – for want of parachutes – went down with their craft regardless of the rugged terrain, jungle or flak below. Many died like this in the far away Pacific theater. They were not killed by engine failure or human error or airframe fatigue or enemy capture but administrative attitudes toward them. Their folk in Europe and the far America were simply told they had been ‘killed – in - action’. Parachutes were never mentioned. Yet to become a military glider pilot, the young lads had first qualified as power PPL pilots. For all practical purposes, their loved ones knew about the difference between an aeroplane and a non-powered glider regardless of who made the solemn walk to their front door.

War power pilots fared no better on the blame scale. Those who felt their planes could not make it back to base chose to ride the rattle until they crossed back to friendly territory before ejecting. Both ways, those captured - and rescued - or ejected to safety all had to face investigating teams who demanded bail-out justification resulting in a multi-million dollar airplane being abandoned. In 1945, a US B29 cost millions of dollars yet a single raid against Japanese cities periodically involved as many as 750 hundred B29 roll out every four days. To bail-out pilots, every subsequent investigation was a court marshal of a kind. Regardless of outcome, they were released only to be ordered to board the next available B29 and recycled to the very circumstances that had forced them to abandon the earlier flight.

Not unlike glider pilots – even when flying dead leg cargo missions - commercial airline pilots have never had parachute eject options. Flying tropopause heights, pilots are lost for choice anyway. Ejecting at 40,000 feet above ground level without pressure suits would only allow pilots the dignity of being collected up as properly landed corpses. Temperatures are well below zero. Anyone – passenger or pilot - attempting to jump out would freeze instantly. Blood veins would rupture for low pressures and dry air would virtually dehydrate the body faster than descent could save them. Amazingly, those who ask why passenger planes are not equipped with parachutes do not know that a parachute is itself an aircraft which has to be flown, and, depending on the wind pattern, could ascend instead of descending.

Airline pilots have thus based their survival instincts on reflex and emergency drill procedures. Simulator proficiency on type has helped them place faults with airframe or engine performance before they happen in flight. Hours upon hours are spent ditching onto imaginary swells. Bracing severe squall turbulence, engine fires and cabin depressurization emergencies helps a pilot caught in clear air turbulence (CAT) take remedial action by reflex. Pilots also divert to the nearest en-route aerodromes for technical landings to do thorough checks before continuing on a journey. A singular lone flyer caught in CAT would never be honored for ascertained cause regardless of what mission he was on. Pessimists would only trade his epitaph for failures not seek to understand what CAT is about.

Modern privatized companies are investing millions of dollars into aviation safety programs. This must go hand in hand with air crew resource management and disaster mitigation. Search and rescue proficiency has been endorsed by international civil aviation authorities. For flight crew, survival strategies do not begin when an engine quits in flight but is an all time conscience.

General aviation aircraft have been known to make successful glide approaches to home fields or corn fields, highways and ice floes. Jetliners have over-shot runway stop ways and ploughed into diverse obstacles to an astonishing low fatality count.

It thus baffles pilot’s relatives – and peers in the know of each pilot’s survival and safety record – when an extremely refined state of the art airliner takes a fatal dive from the sky. Unqualified political or popular media response to such tragedies can later turn condescending where not marched with professional etiquette. By law, the sole authorized person to make government policy statements on aviation safety is the Minister in charge of civil aviation variously through delegated authority of the Director General of the local Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) however named. Official Operator (Company) press releases are thus written in cautious edit. Should company Directors find a pilot at fault for commission or omissions that caused a near fatal incident, dismissals are common. These are rarely contested by the pilot guild since it only purges aviation tomorrow’s accident. Alas, the press would rather all accidents or pilot deaths and subsequent staff dismissals were ‘puffed’ in intrigue!

When Amelia Erhart Putman and Frank Noonan disappeared without trace July 2, 1936 on their much publicized round the world tour – off the New Guinea coast near the Caroline Islands - the Japanese were held suspect. There were those who felt otherwise. It was the first incident where crew seniority (Noonan) and fame (Amelia) were said to have combined into the occupational blackmail theory. Professional aviators were not that won to the pilot error hype. Most were fully aware of the Alaskan Ben Eielson/Earl Borland search and rescue mission 1928-29.

Alaskan pilots not only flew on unmapped routes in zero visibility but died on service-to-God must go missions. Harold Gillam, a young volunteer rookie who had only one solo flight to his credit, insisted on joining the search team and was given an airplane but to fly in tow behind team leader Capt. The lead pilot turned back upon sensing zero visibility. With no radio, Gillam was not aware that had returned. Corlson agonized the whole night over the lost young lad for it was under these very weather conditions that Eielson and Borland had been lost. Next day he flew watching for the boy’s wreck only to find the young aspiring pilot safely parked where Corlson ought to have led him. Gillam later became one of Alaska ’s best known pilots. Corlson learned a lesson: there are times when aborting a mission could result in many more deaths at mission destination.

Thus many pilots believed that either Amelia or Noonan acting alone could have ditched or glided onto any of the nearby islands if not caught up in perilous weather. Someone could have poisoned their rations or contaminated their fuel reservoir tanks to steal the thunder from further success. Fabricated (none scientific) reports on the Japanese role proved no better than an elope theory itself a favorite with writers of make belief fantasy.

Our era has proved an echo of the Japanese blame game. New York ’s 9/11 had precursors albeit at a lower scale.

On September 1, 1983 , Korean Flight 007 was shot down by a Russian pilot for ‘straying’ into Russian airspace. A skeptical world could only empathize with loss of 269 souls on board a B747 dismissed by a single missile fired by an obedient Soviet fighter pilot. On July 3,1988 – 5 years from the Korean Flight 007 tragedy with Reagan still at the helm – USS Vincennes fired into and downed an Iranian Airbus A300 killing 290 on board. Initial blame was on pilots. They were said to have turned toward the US warship immediately after take off. Pilots worldwide were dismayed because veracity of takeoff and climb out data could have been cross-checked first from the airport control tower before going over the newswires with false trailers. US navy later claimed mistaking the A300 for an errant Iranian F14 Tomcat. The much talked about Lockerbie incident happened a few months later.

Former President Machel's plane flown by military pilots slammed into a mountain en-route to his Mozambique homeland. That one of the pilots survived to tell his story is all the more striking. Needless to say initial reports blamed pilots.

That 1985 was one of the worst for deliberate ‘human factor’ disasters is an understatement.

That year started February 19, with a Spanish B727 slamming onto Spanish Mt. Oiz killing 148 persons. June claimed an Air India B747. It crashed into the Atlantic killing 329 people.

On August 2, a Delta airline B747 crashed at Dallas Fort Worth international airport with loss of 133 souls. Ten days later August 12, another B747 Japanese airliner crashed - of all places - onto Japan’s Mt. Ogura killing an all time record 520 persons. B747 pessimists of the late sixties felt vindicated.

1985 also saw civilian Captaincy subordinated by military command in flight. To this day, debates range as to the legality of these dangerous aerial contentions. That August, the Reagan administration had scrambled an F14 jet fighter to intercept an airplane carrying surrendered hijackers. They had earlier commandeered Italian cruise ship 'Achile Lauro' before abandoning it on condition of free passage out of Egypt . Once their flight got over international waters - they had killed an American citizen on the ship - the F14 pilot forced the civilian pilots to descend and land at Sicily . Never mind what happened to the hijackers.
Forty two days later, November 23, 1985 , Arab gunmen seized an Egyptian airliner en-route to Cairo and killed 60 passengers. A month later, December 27, Palestinian gunmen killed 20 civilians at airports in Rome and Vienna at ticket counters of Israeli El Al airline. Relatives of the dead passengers might have gone for the theory that the pilot who accepted the initial intercept was to blame for the dominoes effect that culminated in passengers being killed in kind. But such pilots knew that on February 21, 1973 , a Libyan jetliner was shot down by Israeli jet fighters over the Sinai desert with loss of 108 passengers. Either way people would have died. That’s the meaning of 'devil's alternative'.

Whichever way investigations turn out, acquitting vilified crew for crimes they never committed is no compensation for emotional turmoil visited upon their league and repute. A helicopter can crash in clear or foul weather when prop wash vortex from main rotors is deflected to the tail rotor sending a new chopper into unrecoverable spins. Tabloid artists awaiting conspiracy theories would not wish to ascertain proof by investigation.

The first man to fly supersonic Chuck Yeager nearly perished the Gagarin way when his craft became uncontrollable in high speed rolls. Previously, his colleagues had perished on that particular model for which 'pilot error' was claimed against them. When it happened to Yeager, manufacturers and aviation investigators ordered the plane dismantled. They were shocked to learn that what had saved Yeager was that he had had height not experience. Investigators found that an elderly assembly worker had been inserting a bolt upside down which became lethal when a pilot exceeded certain speeds and entered any text book roll. Those who had died for the suspect bolt were exonerated posthumously. Pilot error, no, human factor yes! Tell your press man there is a difference.

African safety regulators have recently taken up pro-active vigilance. They hope to act in tandem with global safety initiatives fronting for safer skies. One of the first duties they should consider is to honor pilots killed braving hitherto hostile skies flown under suspect infrastructure placed at their expense. It might look hypocritical to cry wolf over accident cumulative local statistics or look up every time a jet contrail graces our skies only bidding pilots 'sera sera'. Rather, let us begin by applauding their professional resilience over the years. Let us concede that all mechanical implements are fallible and that Murphy’s Law will occasionally take effect. The axiom remains; maintenance and design flaws resulting in airframe mid-air disintegration have been known to be compounded by supplicant crew flying under operant administrative commission. Simplifying this dictum by calling aged airplanes seen in Africa ‘flying coffins’ does not help if cost of new ones or financing aerodrome maintenance is not prioritized. Human error is very varied in concept.

Pilots, Air Traffic and Ground Control take blame for air travel's worst runway incursion and mid-air collision. On March 27, 1977 , a KLM B747 and a Pan American B747 collided on a runway at Tenerife, Canary Islands killing 582 people. Six months earlier, a British airways Trident and Yugoslav DC9 had collided over Zagreb , Yugoslavia with a 176 death toll. These two incidents proved most embarrassing for air traffic control administration not only at local levels but at ICAO and IATA corridors. Aviation companies realized that they had always remained aloof as to the disadvantaged nature of third world aviation facilitation. After Tasic - the duty air traffic controller - was jailed for negligence, the aviation fraternity started lobbying for his release. It had dawned on them that jailing Tasic would only be scapegoating a choice victim for communal crime.

If the last two decades have had airplanes straying, making emergency landings, running fatal fighter intercepts and logging controlled flight into terrain, few remember that the first pilot to be involved in a fatal 'aeroplane' accident was Orville Wright himself. On November 17, 1907 , Lieutenant Selfridge, flying as passenger on a military demonstration flight, died when the craft crashed from height. Orville barely escaped death with only a broken left leg. There were no FAA and NTSB to ascertain blame but Orville wrote a detailed report as what he believed had caused the crash. But again, Lilienthal was right. Without pilots like Orville and Wilbur - owners, manufacturers and investigators of their aircrafts’ accidents - both the NTSB and FAA would never have been.

Truth be said; despite all that can be said about prevalence of suspect politics and unmitigated horrific moments, the aviation investigation system is known for its thoroughness and openness. No matter how long it takes, conclusive evidence is never limited to indicting human factor. Company executives know that blaming pilots for communal crime always turns out to be as temporal a stunt as flawed corporate public relations ethic trying to put airspace administrative management on the dock. Operators believe that the primary goal of being patient for accident investigation reports is to instruct a way forward to redouble flight safety. The blame game doesn’t help.

The first African-American to qualify as an astronaut was McNair alright. Guion Bluford was first in space though. However, giving credit to Ronald McNair within a diaspora mention can not be whispered without recall of who the very first African-American to train as an astronaut really was. It was neither McNair nor Bluford. It was Robert Henry Lawrence, Jr.

In June l967, he was named the first African-American astronaut, though he never made it into space. Several months later, on December 8, Lawrence died when his F-104 Starfighter jet, in which he was a co-pilot/passenger during a training flight, crashed at Edwards Air Force Base, California .

What caused the crash? Perhaps the pilot ‘had abandoned good judgment and common sense’. But was it pilot error, human factor, sabotage or destiny appeased?

Ask Nasa.

END.

[Article first published in the East African AVIATOR 2007/Oct Issue as a two part serial in including 2008FebIssue.]
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