I’m really bothered after this weekend. There have been 4 aviation accidents that I’m aware of in different parts of the world.
I’m sure a lot of people have heard about the crash of Red Arrow number 4. I’m not sure if they’ve released any sort of preliminary report, but it is safe to say that it’s a sad thing any time someone is killed in a plane crash no matter how it happened. There will be a thorough investigation, but that won’t change the fact that the Red Arrows family lost one of their own.
If you have ever been to Yellowknife, or watched the Ice Pilots series, you may be familiar with a carrier known as First Air(they are down the ramp from Buffalo and fly a couple of L382G Hercules aircraft). Sadly, First Air lost one of their 737s while it was on approach to Resolute. The aircraft had been chartered by a hotel owner and was configured for both cargo and passenger transport. There was quite a government presence in the area already due to a scheduled disaster exercise, so response was pretty swift. Still, even though the black boxes are already in Ottawa for examination, no cause is known. To add insult to injury, CTV is reporting another of First Air’s 737 fleet apparently had to make an emergency landing at Rankin Inlet due to an engine failure. It was a by the book single engine landing, and was otherwise uneventful.
<object class=”alignleft width=”270″ height=”181″> The third accident involved wing walker Todd Green at the Selfridge Air National Guard Base airshow. Green was performing at about 1:30 p.m. on Sunday when he fell from an airplane during his signature airplane to helicopter transfer. Many airshow spectators were very shocked to discover the fall was not part of the act. They expected Green to parachute to safety, unfortunately he performed the stunt without safety equipment and fell some 200 feet to his death. I think Kyle Franklin, who used to fly with Green and also lost his wife earlier this year at an airshow in Texas, said it best when he said, “Most of us in this business aren’t necessarily adrenaline junkies. We do it because we love performing, being in front of a crowd and entertaining them.”
While I don’t like any aviation accidents, the one I found most bothersome this weekend was Bryan Jensen. I’d seen him perform several times, and I even ran into him at Oshkosh this year. We talked about his plane, which was an awe-inspiring Pitts Model 12 with a 412 HP Russian radial engine that gave it a thrust to weight ratio of greater than 1:1, and his potential performance at an airport near where I live, in fact it was the airport to which I flew my first solo cross country.
He was a really interesting guy, a really great performer, and will be sorely missed. I was hesitant to post the video I found (that’s it at the top), but I think it provides some important context to the crash. You can see about 20 seconds in, he does a Lomcevak and enters an inverted spin on recovery. For whatever reason, whether control inputs or failures, the inverted spin transitions to a normal spin at an unrecoverable altitude. I don’t know if there will ever be any sort of cause cited in this crash, but I know that Bryan Jensen loved flying and performing (it was easy to tell just by talking to him).
Nothing I can say or do will change these tragedies, so I just hope that God grants those effected at least a little peace.