After the accident: showing off is not worth it

As his parents watched, an F-14A fighter pilot took off from the Air National Guard airfield adjacent to Nashville International Airport (KNBA) in Tennessee. He immediately banked upward more than 50 degrees and climbed into the clouds with loud afterburner fire. The pilot became disoriented, lost control, crashed, and died. A Navy investigation found that the unusually steep climb was intentional, concluding that the pilot’s judgment was “influenced by the presence of his parents on the airfield.” One admiral said the pilot was “showing off” to his parents.

That was in 1996. A recent report from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) puts a modern twist on the topic of pilot bragging. It turns out we don’t need Mom, Dad, or a Tomcat jet fighter to weaken our sense of safety. We don’t even have to do anything that feels extreme.

It was May 17, 2021. The weather in Michigan was good. Summer seemed near. A 23-year-old pilot took off in a Cessna 182 from Clare Municipal Airport (48D) and flew slow and low for two hours. He had a passion for aviation and had already logged more than 600 hours in the air. The week before, he had received his commercial multi-engine aircraft certification, taking him another step closer to his goal of becoming an airline pilot. He landed at Romeo State Airport (D98) in Ray Center, bought fuel, and took off from there at noon. An hour later, the Cessna suddenly crashed into a field at an altitude of 500 feet without warning and without a radio call.

He was a pipeline patrol pilot. It’s big business. There are plenty of commercial pilots in high-wing airplanes that fly over oil and gas pipelines. They look for leaks (apparently you can see changes in the vegetation around the leak) and for encroachments on the right-of-way (like construction, trees, or repeated off-road vehicle driving that causes erosion). Sometimes they fly with an observer, sometimes alone. On that day, the accident pilot was alone in his employer’s 182.

The 1965 Cessna 182H, with a 230-horsepower engine, had been in service with the pipeline patrol company for years. The NTSB’s examination of the wreckage after the accident “found no evidence of a mechanical malfunction or failure that would have prevented the normal operation of the aircraft.” Autopsy results also showed no medical problems for the deceased pilot. And the accident was not associated with a metrological event. Ten miles away, the official observation was 74 degrees, scattered clouds at 5,500 feet, visibility 10 miles, wind 210 degrees at 5 knots. But the reason for the crash was obvious. It was even noted on the section map.

Near the field with the main wreckage was a 1,040-foot (316-meter) radio tower. The left wing and left cabin door were found at the base of the tower. The NTSB determined the probable cause of the accident was that “the pilot did not use adequate lookout to maintain clearance from the radio tower and its guy wires.” Radar data shows that the Cessna remained about 450 to 500 feet (137 to 152 meters) above the ground, following the pipeline to the northwest. It had maintained its normal position to the right of the pipeline. This is standard procedure for airplanes and helicopters following roads or pipelines. Then it turned slightly to the left, left its position, and crossed the pipeline. It was not where it should have been. This was the side with the radio tower.

He saw it too late. The Cessna suddenly took off and climbed to 1,500 feet per minute. Nevertheless, it collided with a tower’s guy wire. The left wing separated from the fuselage at the wing root and fell almost vertically downward. The rest of the plane crashed into a field half a mile from the tower.

That’s the “how” of the plane crash. But why did the pilot go off course? Why didn’t he see the tower earlier?

After the accident, the NTSB found that “the pilot was likely distracted while using his mobile device in the minutes before the accident and did not maintain adequate lookout.” Managing distractions is a task of aviation that requires us to manage our attention. And at depth, attention must be outside the cockpit. The mobile device the NTSB was referring to was a smartphone, and this pilot wasn’t just texting or taking photos, he had an audience. He posted videos on Snapchat.

For those who don’t know, Snapchat is a social media platform for sharing messages, photos and videos that is popular among younger generations. Its defining feature is immediacy. Content is only available for a short period of time, after which it is no longer accessible and is automatically deleted after 24 hours. Several people watched the pilot live on Snapchat. They tracked his progress on the app’s map. Shortly before the accident, a video allegedly showed the terrain in front of the plane’s position, including wind turbines and corn fields.

By the time the NTSB investigator learned of the Snapchats, the platform had already deleted the footage. The agency was able to obtain screenshots of the Snapchat map, which showed the pilot’s location as a sleek red biplane, and interviewed two people who had watched online.

The last post was probably sent 35 seconds before the accident. He was 1.5 miles southeast of the tower and flying directly toward it. If you’re playing with your phone, don’t fly the plane. The NTSB concluded that “a contributing factor to the accident was the pilot’s unnecessary use of his mobile device during the flight, which interfered with his attention/monitoring of the airplane’s flight path.” He was too busy showing off.

Airline pilots enforce a “sterile cockpit” at altitudes below 3,000 meters, where phones are stowed and nothing is discussed other than the flight. My gliding club bans GoPros in the cockpit for the first month of the season. Professional YouTube pilots have assistants and set up several cameras that require no attention during the flight.

Hollywood pilots plan film shoots in detail and employ professional aerial filmmakers.

After the F-14 crash, an NTSB investigator told me, “The most dangerous thing to an airplane is a camera.” Perhaps pilots who want to be social media influencers should think about this question: Who does their camera really influence?