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Old February 7th 07, 10:25 PM posted to rec.aviation.homebuilt
ChuckSlusarczyk
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Posts: 216
Default Sebring and Hitlaw

In article .com, BobR says...

Funny, someone else finally saw the irony in Jaun's arguments
defending Bede and the BD5 for the number of people killed, his own
fear of flying the BD5J and the constant slams against Chuck for
someone who was killed in a highly modified version of one of the
aircraft that Chuck sells.


It's a tough thing when someone gets killed in a product you made. Not as tough
as for the person and his family but obviously it's tough, believe me.
When we had our first fatality back in 1983 I was devastated by it. Up to then
everything was great fun. We were selling lots of planes, guys were flying all
over the place telling us how much they enjoyed their Hawk.

Then one day I got a letter with a newspaper article and written on the paper in
magic marker was a simple statement "scratch one Hawk" .The only time I ever
felt hat bad was when my Dad died.During the course of the investigation a guy
from the FAA helped put it into perspective for me.

He said think about the guy who works at Ford building cars he knows that a
percent of the cars he works on will be in accidents and people will be injured
or die. But if he did his job right and he didn't screw up he's not responsible
for the accident. When people drink and drive or do all the things people do
that cause accidents it's not the fault of the Ford designers, Ford Motors or
the employees.

He said the same with you .If you did every thing right and the product is good
and people misuse ,screw up or modify it then it's ultimately their fault not
yours.
But the difference between the Ford guy and you is the Ford guy didn't know the
person who crashed and you probably do and so it hurts more. So when there's an
accident I investigate so as to find the cause and everyone so far has been the
result of a mistake ,screw up, unauthorized modifications and a couple of
inflight heart attacks. I still feel terrible after an accident but
knowing I wasn't directly responsible helps. I just pray to God I never screw up
and have someone crash because of a bad design or part...that would be a lot to
bear so I do my best to see it doesn't happen....

Now go ahead jaun make fun of this ...

Chuck S RAH-14/1 ret