Tragity

Hi Jose

It really is a difficult decision.
My thoughts right now are leaning to not flying related kids in the same
flight, but I truly do take your point about two families grieving as
opposed to one.
This whole thread is such a tragedy - here we are trying to light a
spark under these kids to get them interested in flying, and then we
have this situation where they are killed on their first flight.
and of course we have to remember the pilot, who devoted his day to
giving kids this experience, and paid for it with his life.
There are no winners here - it is a very sad scenario.

Fly safe, and thanks for your post,

Tony
--

Tony Roberts
PP-ASEL
VFR OTT
Night
Cessna 172H C-GICE


In article ,
Jose wrote:

The alternative is losses to two families. Is this better?

I believe so - speaking from the position of someone who has already
lost a child.

I am truly sorry about your loss. True, you might have lost two. But
you might have also lost none. That is the tradeoff for the other family.

Jose

"tony roberts" wrote in message
news:nospam-E2DBEA.20582917102005@shawnews...
It really is a difficult decision.
My thoughts right now are leaning to not flying related kids in the same
flight, but I truly do take your point about two families grieving as
opposed to one.

Of course, this debate is moot. The two youngsters killed in this accident
weren't siblings.

Still, I find the "seperate the kids" line of thought to not be suited to
the real world, in spite of any rational basis for it. Families travel
together all the time. They do other things together all the time. They
are in constant danger of perishing simultaneously, through much of the
childhood of the children of a family. Even as adults, they are in similar
danger quite often.

Being a family means you do things together. If two children have a desire
to participate in a single flight together, I think some fear that they both
might die in the same accident isn't justification for sacrificing the
enjoyment they get from doing things together.

Spending any effort to keep siblings apart, when they have a desire to be
together, draws attention to a reasonably tiny risk of death, sacrificing
the enjoyment of the moment. An enjoyment of the moment that *ought* to be
the focus and primary motivating factor.

Not that I should need any sort of example, but one need only look to Jay
Honeck's travel with his family in his airplane. This sort of thing happens
all the time in the aviation world, just as families travel together in
automobiles all the time. It just doesn't make sense, from an "enjoy life"
point of view, to waste time trying to keep families apart.

Pete

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...
"tony roberts" wrote in message
news:nospam-E2DBEA.20582917102005@shawnews...
It really is a difficult decision.

Still, I find the "seperate the kids" line of thought to not be suited to
the real world, in spite of any rational basis for it. Families travel
together all the time. They do other things together all the time. They
are in constant danger of perishing simultaneously, through much of the
childhood of the children of a family. Even as adults, they are in
similar danger quite often.

Being a family means you do things together. If two children have a
desire to participate in a single flight together, I think some fear that
they both might die in the same accident isn't justification for
sacrificing the enjoyment they get from doing things together.

I'm not a parent so ignore this if you wish. I would think if you have your
(say) 10 and a 15 year old kids along with their friends for YE flights that
the each of the kids would prefer to fly with one of his friends of the same
age than with his sibling.

It would still be a major tragedy if something should happen in another YE
flight with siblings or non-siblings. I hope it's at least another 1.2
million YE flights before the next tragedy.

I used to work for a company that had a policy that prohibited several
people from the same department to fly on the same airline flight. When a
group of us would fly to Singapore, we would fly 2 separate days. I usually
flew on the first day but my luggage would arrive the next day. :-(

-Greg B.

"N93332" wrote in message
...
I'm not a parent so ignore this if you wish. I would think if you have
your (say) 10 and a 15 year old kids along with their friends for YE
flights that the each of the kids would prefer to fly with one of his
friends of the same age than with his sibling.

It really depends on the kids. Some siblings love to do stuff together.
Some do not. The point here is that what the kids would prefer to do should
probably guide the decision, not some morbid fear of killing two kids at
once.

If killing two kids at once is bad, then each flight should only take one
kid. Of course, that increases the exposure of the hazard to the pilot, but
probably not in a significant way. Screwing around with silly rules about
not putting related children on the same airplane is just that: silly.

It would still be a major tragedy if something should happen in another YE
flight with siblings or non-siblings. I hope it's at least another 1.2
million YE flights before the next tragedy.

Me too. But I think it's important to keep in mind that accidents do
happen, people do die, and there's precious little anyone can do to
*completely* prevent that from happening. A handful of fatalities (whether
2, 4, whatever) in over a million flights is a pretty good safety record,
IMHO. Great? No, probably not. But in context it's good.

I used to work for a company that had a policy that prohibited several
people from the same department to fly on the same airline flight. When a
group of us would fly to Singapore, we would fly 2 separate days. I
usually flew on the first day but my luggage would arrive the next day.
:-(

I've heard of similar policies at other companies. I think it's similarly
misguided. Employees traveling together may be able to accomplish business
while on the flight, and the risk of even one being killed in an accident is
remarkably small. There is greater hazard in allowing employees to drive to
lunch together in the same car every day, or to carpool to work for that
matter (activities that are generally not prohibited by those same
companies). Some companies not only allow employees to travel by air
together, they pay for the airplane! How can it be so important to one
company to keep their employees apart, and yet another is willing to put
them together on a higher-risk mode of transportation?

Frankly, a company that cannot withstand the loss of a couple of employees
is a company that has a pretty weak business plan.

Pete

I've heard of similar policies at other companies. I think it's similarly
misguided.

It'a a little different. The companies are not protecting their
employees, they are protecting the =one= project that all [four] of
these [key] employees manage. It may still be silly, but it is different.

I worked for a company that had to ship the negatives for a film it was
making from overseas. They insisted on two separate flights, which IMHO
was dumb. Loss of =either= of the flights would have meant loss of the
project.

Jose
--
Money: what you need when you run out of brains.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Not that I should need any sort of example, but one need only look to Jay
Honeck's travel with his family in his airplane. This sort of thing
happens all the time in the aviation world, just as families travel
together in automobiles all the time. It just doesn't make sense, from an
"enjoy life" point of view, to waste time trying to keep families apart.

Mary and I have debated this for over a decade, now -- and I believe there
is no better answer than this:

Life is a terminal condition. Live it for all its worth, now, cuz you could
be struck down with Lou Gehrig's disease at any time. (See Lane Wallace's
"Flying" column this month for a sobering report on what kind of a bad hand
life can deal you.)

We fly as a family, whenever and wherever we can, over 170 hours per year.
We fly in a single-engine plane, which gives us just one way of going up
(there are a hundred ways to come down), and it's 31 years old. We maintain
Atlas to the highest standards, but anything can happen at any time, and
we've trained extensively to handle those situations.

We don't fly at night, and we don't fly in bad weather. We always buy gas
from the same station, and always filter it before putting it in the plane.
We change the oil and filter every 25 hours. We never skate on a pre-flight
inspection, no matter how cold or hot. We usually have two pilots on board,
and the kids are trained to watch for traffic.

We fly from a lightly used, excellent general aviation airport. We have
three wide, long runways, low density altitude, little terrain to hit, and
an encyclopedic knowledge of the local and regional area. In our opinion,
we have reduced our risk of losing our children to an acceptable level.

But it's still our worst fear.

It's all about risk aversion, tempered with the sure knowledge that you
*will* die someday. Some people can't get out of bed in the morning
because of that pressure, while the rest of us push life to the limits.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Peter Duniho" wrote in
:

"N93332" wrote in message
...
I'm not a parent so ignore this if you wish. I would think if you
have your (say) 10 and a 15 year old kids along with their friends
for YE flights that the each of the kids would prefer to fly with one
of his friends of the same age than with his sibling.

It really depends on the kids. Some siblings love to do stuff
together. Some do not. The point here is that what the kids would
prefer to do should probably guide the decision, not some morbid fear
of killing two kids at once.

If killing two kids at once is bad, then each flight should only take
one kid. Of course, that increases the exposure of the hazard to the
pilot, but probably not in a significant way. Screwing around with
silly rules about not putting related children on the same airplane is
just that: silly.

It would still be a major tragedy if something should happen in
another YE flight with siblings or non-siblings. I hope it's at least
another 1.2 million YE flights before the next tragedy.

Me too. But I think it's important to keep in mind that accidents do
happen, people do die, and there's precious little anyone can do to
*completely* prevent that from happening. A handful of fatalities
(whether 2, 4, whatever) in over a million flights is a pretty good
safety record, IMHO. Great? No, probably not. But in context it's
good.

I used to work for a company that had a policy that prohibited
several people from the same department to fly on the same airline
flight. When a group of us would fly to Singapore, we would fly 2
separate days. I usually flew on the first day but my luggage would
arrive the next day.
:-(

I've heard of similar policies at other companies. I think it's
similarly misguided. Employees traveling together may be able to
accomplish business while on the flight, and the risk of even one
being killed in an accident is remarkably small. There is greater
hazard in allowing employees to drive to lunch together in the same
car every day, or to carpool to work for that matter (activities that
are generally not prohibited by those same companies). Some companies
not only allow employees to travel by air together, they pay for the
airplane! How can it be so important to one company to keep their
employees apart, and yet another is willing to put them together on a
higher-risk mode of transportation?

Frankly, a company that cannot withstand the loss of a couple of
employees is a company that has a pretty weak business plan.

Pete



Well, we don't know what caused this, but taking only one child at a
time COULD reduce risks.... less weight in the plane....

FWIW

--
-- ET :-)

"A common mistake people make when trying to design something
completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete
fools."---- Douglas Adams

"Peter Duniho" wrote:

I've heard of similar policies at other companies. I think it's
similarly misguided. Employees traveling together may be able to
accomplish business while on the flight, and the risk of even one
being killed in an accident is remarkably small. There is greater
hazard in allowing employees to drive to lunch together in the same
car every day, or to carpool to work for that matter (activities that
are generally not prohibited by those same companies). Some companies
not only allow employees to travel by air together, they pay for the
airplane! How can it be so important to one company to keep their
employees apart, and yet another is willing to put them together on a
higher-risk mode of transportation?

Frankly, a company that cannot withstand the loss of a couple of
employees is a company that has a pretty weak business plan.

It's all driven by $$$. There have been a couple of examples where the
entire management team of a company was killed in a bizjet crash. It is
a very significant event when you lose the CEO, the COO, the CFO, and a
couple of other VPs at the same time, along with their supporting
people. Often they were involved in major acquisitions that fell apart,
or were developing new business that failed shortly thereafter. The
results were millions of dollars in losses, not to mention the loss of
the talent, and the payouts to families.

While other managers can often fill in, there will be a time lag while
they get up to speed on various subjects. Major companies like GE have
rules that limit the number of their executive team that can fly on the
same flight because of this. The rules do not prohibit two or three
together, just more than that.

As far as other forms of travel being riskier, the business aviation
sector does not have a particularly good record in comparison to airline
or highway travel.

Totally preventable tragedy, thats the saddest part.

The kids' parents should now file civil suit against the pilot's estate,
the airport that sponsored the event, the EAA, as well as the manufacturer
of the plane and possibly whatever firm did the maintenance.

Of course they probably won't, since any parent stupid enough to allow
their kid to climb into a plane of unknown reliability, with a pilot of
unknown skill and ability, will probably not think of this, unless an
aviation attorney read the story and contacts them.

Amazing: would parents would allow their kids to hop on the back of a
motorcycle with an unknown rider, get onto an ATV or snowmobile with a
stranger, etc.? Probably not. But the EAA's slick propoganda (like
making a false statement claiming there have been no other fatalities in
the YE program) fools some people.

The credentials required to fly someone's kids around (from the EAA
website):

"The basic pilot requirements are minimal, but important. Please review
the Young Eagle pilot requirements before you take a Young Eagle flying:


EAA Young Eagle Pilot Requirements:


Appropriate Airmen's Certificate (Sport Pilot or higher)

Current Medical Certificate (if applicable)

EAA National Membership

90-day currency in aircraft used"

More GA insanity. Does it ever end?