Tragedy

I've talked before about my friend who is a private pilot. I have been able to fly with him a few times and I've really enjoyed it. One of the benefits to hanging out at the airport is I have been able to get to know quite a few people. They have given me a ton of information on airplanes and where to find information and what's happening at our local airport.

One of the companies based at the Spanish Fork airport is Spectrum Aero. They developed a business jet that is smallish. It holds ten passengers and is an all-composite aircraft to keep the weight down and the performance up. On July 25, the jet took off for another practice flight and crashed upon takeoff, cartwheeling down the runway while disintegrating and came to a stop in a farmer's field West of the runway spilling 150 gallons of jet fuel on the pasture. The pilots at the airport were speculating on what the cause of the crash was, and two families are without their loved ones as both pilots perished during the crash.

The pilots do not talk about crashes so they can lay blame or point out how they are better pilots than those who had the accident. They review all the accidents that occur so they can become better. Learning from others' mistakes is a whole lot easier than making them yourself. The speculation by the pilots was running towards a problem because of the hot days we had been having and the aircraft taking off before it was going fast enough to sustain flight. According to the initial accident investigation, that assumption was incorrect. The reason this aircraft crashed was because somebody put a control on backwards. The airplane was in the shop for a while getting new struts put on the landing gear to give it a bit more strength, and there was a part in the way so they redesigned it, put it in and inadvertently put it in backwards. This made the plane roll right when the pilot told it to go left. This very expensive proof-of-concept aircraft was destroyed and two men lost their lives because of one little thing that was put on backwards. The mechanic assuredly tested it when he put the part on and didn't notice it. The pilot preflighted the aircraft and noticed that his control stick moved the control surfaces, but didn't notice they moved backwards. All because of this small mistake, so much was lost.