Airplane crashes continue to make headlines. Many people read the overplayed stories, placed right beside an auto crash and condemn airplanes. Maybe the automobile isn't here to stay either?

In a comprehensive study of 110 airplane accidents occurring in Indiana during the past six months, this outstanding fact emerges: Structural failure of the aircraft accounted for only 1.8 per cent of the crashes while pilot error, consisting of poor judgment, faulty technique and carelessness caused 74.6 percent.

Perhaps it is time for those of us who fly in Indiana condemn our selves and our flying habits, rather than shake our heads sadly over aircraft in general.

Pilots will understand, when we say that the most serious crashes of the half-year, were of the "spin-stall" variety. Of eight fatal crashes of this type, five of them were the direct result of "buzz-jobs," which this column has attacked before.

 

To the uninitiated, permit me to quote from the record to say that the wreckage is usually found within 75 feet to a mile of a relative's home.

Private pilots should bow their heads in shame when the record shows in big black letters that privates were flying in 58 of the 110 accidents studied while only 21 students were involved.

Just listen to the report of the serious accidents in Indiana during the first six months of 1947: Three stalled out of steep turns while circling relatives's homes; two stalled in abrupt pull-outs to miss trees in the front yard of an uncle; another failed to pull-out of a power dive at the home of a brother-in-law.

To continue the "sad Joe" stories, one crop-duster stalled-in on a steep turn at the end of a flight a few feet off the ground; another fellow used an airplane instead of a boat to look for a mooring place along the river. He came around a sharp bend, flying low and slow, hit a power-line. Two boys stole an airplane, buzzed a river barge, struck the river. Another private pilot tried to fly his brother back to school through a snow storm. They hit a tree.

Another accident occurred after a pilot took off at night through thundershowers without an instrument rating and against the weather forecast. Another boy who was epileptic, power-dived into the ground.

How many of these crashes were caused by airplanes? Or by failure of any part of the airplane? No, it is the pilot who fails in the great majority of the cases. The alarming fact is that judgment, carelessness and technique of pilots who ought to know better, are causing most of the trouble in Indiana.

Neither state nor Federal facilities are adequate to cope with the menace presented by "buzz-boys" or "Careless Dilberts." here is a job which must be done by pilots themselves, airport operators and others interested in the future of aviation.

Aircraft accidents in Indiana can be reduced in frequency, many can be eliminated altogether if all airport managers, operators, flight instructors, pilots, will join forces in conscientiously observing knowing aviation safety practices.

To those readers who do not fly, do not condemn aviation because of pilot-foolishness anymore than you would condemn all automobiles because of reckless drivers.

Start reading between the lines of aviation crashes and you will quickly be able to draw your own conclusions about most airplane accidents. And look upon the fellow who tells you proudly about his "buzz-jobs," as you would some unfortunate with an incurable disease. He certainly has one.

Little Joe
Fritz, the tiny-mite son of instructor and Mrs. Joe Carlin, is a cute little shaver with a rapidly developing sense of aircraft. Instead of sitting on daddy's knee and reciting the alphabet, this little eaglet perches on flying pappy's wing-tip, rapidly calls off the name and maker of different aircraft: Swift, Piper, Cessna, Navion, Beechcraft, T-Craft, and I don't know how many others. He can and does identify them on sight.

"He who counts on luck instead of gasoline usually runs out of both."

Warsaw Daily Times Fri. Oct. 24, 1947

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