Safety is Everybody's Business
by Jim Rice
If you are an AMA member, you need to be concerned
with safety at your flying field. It is easier to
take the heat from a fellow club member for
correcting him or her for a safety violation than it
is to take that same person to the hospital or the
morgue.
I
own a hobby shop and it used to worry me to stop
people and correct them on safety issues but one day
it dawned on me that if one person creates a serious
enough safety incident it could cost us a field,
which would really hurt my business. If that person
maimed or killed another good customer/friend, I
would be out a customer anyway. If they did any of
that without me trying to intercede and make a
difference, then I would probably never forgive
myself.
So, the result has been that I take safety to heart
every day at every field and I am as gentlemanly and
tactful as I can possibly be so as not to aggravate
a customer while at the same time fixing a problem
at the field. Generally it is not necessary to
scream at or humiliate a person who is violating
safety rules, a gentle reminder can usually do the
trick.
However, if it is really serious and a nudge doesn’t
do the trick, it may be necessary to take a more
forceful approach or even call in assistance from
your club’s board of directors.
It is important that we all have the opportunity to
fly in a safe environment. I have seen pilots land,
pack, and go home to avoid flying with or being
around a pilot who is dangerous or drinking and
flying. That only allows the standard to be lowered.
I
worked for a really smart Major General once who
drilled into all of us the fact that if you walked
past a problem and didn’t correct it, you set a new
standard and it was lower.
That same philosophy applies to our flying fields.
If any of us observes a problem and doesn’t try to
fix it, we have told the perpetrator that what they
are doing is okay with us.
Complaining to each other about the problem without
confronting it only aggravates you and your friends
while appearing to condone the activity. Find a way
to bring it up or get someone else to do it but
don’t wait until the next club meeting or tattle to
the Safety Officer. It really needs to be fixed at
the time of occurrence so it can be discussed, if
necessary, between all parties present at the time.
Every accident involving safety should be drilled
into your mind and reviewed from every aspect to
ensure that you know what caused it, what should
have been done to avoid it and what you will do in
the future to prevent recurrence.
I
had a friend hit in the face with a Taurus and it
buried the Enya .60 in his cheek all the way to the
carburetor. As it turned out, the injured guy had
gone dead stick and was walking across the runway to
retrieve his airplane and the other guy was making a
low, fast flyby. He was turned toward his airplane
and could not see the first guy walking onto the
runway behind him. He saw him only as his airplane
collided with him.
It was all avoidable! Simple communication between
pilots would have prevented the incident. I make
sure I loudly call out “On the field” and make sure
everyone in the air at the time acknowledges before
I walk across the dead line and then yell “Clear”
when they can use the runway again.
A
second incident involved a man starting a G-62 with
a starter and the assistant holding the large
aircraft by standing in front of the horizontal
stabilizer. As the starter was pressed against the
spinner, the airplane moved backward between the
holder’s feet and simultaneously the engine started.
As the man with the starter looked down to put the
starter down, the airplane at a high idle moved back
forward until it came to rest on the holder’s
ankles.
The man starting the engine just saw the airplane
moving and thought his friend had released the
airplane so he tried to reach over the propeller and
grab the fuselage to stop the airplane. In the
process, he got his forearm in the propeller and got
several deep cuts in his arm requiring a trip to the
emergency room and several stitches.
I
reviewed the incident with an eye toward ensuring it
never occurred when I was holding an airplane. The
best answer is to kneel or crouch down and hold the
airplane with your hands, however many of us are
older, heavier, and lazier than others.
What I do now is stand over the airplane with the
leading edge of the stabilizer against one ankle and
then I place the other foot forward so that the
trailing edge of the wing is against the shin. That
way, the airplane cannot move back as the starter is
applied and cannot move forward when it starts.
If the airplane is big enough or is a biplane, I can
stand with the stabilizer against both ankles then
bend at the waist and hold the canopy or top wing to
stop the airplane from moving to the rear.
Restraints are good but they do not stop the
airplane from moving back when the starter is
applied.
Try to make something good come from every accident.
Learn what caused it then plan to prevent it and
educate others at the same time.
Q
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