A tragedy - a Minden death today!

I met Allan only about two months ago, but his infectious good humor
and general manner of being immediately made him a valued friend. We
flew together in my two place ship just a month ago and had a great
time. The call Saturday afternoon telling me of his death was a real
shock. One minute he's here, the next he's gone.

Understandably, there has been some speculation on the cause of this
tragedy, and at a personal level, it's almost impossible to stop. But,
out of respect for Allan as well as the truth, I would encourage us to
wait for the NTSB report. Allan was an ATP who flew for a major
airline for many years and did not impress me as one to take safety
lightly.

When accidents happen there's a natural human tendency to try and find
something that the other guy did wrong so we can convince ourselves
that "it couldn't happen to me." I'd encourage instead that we try to
find any parallels between whatever might have caused this accident
(even if it didn't) and our own thinking. That way, maybe Allan's
death can help save someone else.

On parachutes for example: When I first got into mountain soaring in
1994, I debated whether or not to get parachutes. On the one hand,
they were a huge plus if you had to bail out. That's a no brainer. But
I also had heard stories where the extra decision step -- "should I
bail out?" -- had made incidents worse. In one case I heard of, a
pilot with a broken arm had deployed her chute in the plane by
accident and had to land that way. So there were plusses and minusses
to chutes.

As I was debating the issue, a friend sent me a copy of an article on
mountain wave, with a title that probably included the word monster.
Having flown in wave a number of times, my first reaction was, "Yes
there are dangers, but wave itself is the smoothest form of lift.
Probably written by a power pilot who hasn't experienced the beauty of
wave." Was I wrong.

It was written about two gliders exploring the Sierra wave in the
early days. One of them encountered such severe rotor turbulence --
estimated at 15 g's -- that it broke up and the pilot on initial bail
out was going UP! Chastened, I went out and bought two chutes. Further
investigation has led me to fly with chutes even in benign conditions.
(When I asked my rigger about using chutes in general, he told me of a
friend who'd be here if he had. Another plane clipped his tail in the
pattern, making his ship uncontrollable.) So Allan's flying without a
chute was not what I do now, but it was something I had contemplated.

Similarly, the lack of oxygen on the flight looks really bad in hind
sight but may have played no part in this accident. Allan had told a
mutual friend that he wasn't going to go high enough on this flight to
need it. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't learn from even the
possibility that lack of oxygen contributed to the accident. Just that
we should try not to insulate ourselves from the danger by pretending
we'd never do anything similar. Most of us have.

Hoping these comments prove helpful and with fond memories of Allan.

Martin