On any given weekend, thousands of private planes take off. Every once in a while one crashes.
The cause is usually pilot error. But the story is always far more interesting, if you know what questions to ask.
Plane crashes are really about humans' use or abuse of technology. In our booming economy, more people are becoming private pilots, buying or leasing planes. Some pilots - and their planes - will never show up on your radar. Others are accidents waiting to happen. To add credibility to your news organization's coverage of the next accident, start learning now how the aviation world operates.
Lurking online at chat groups like CompuServ's AvSig site, it's easy to get the impression that pilots are a chatty bunch. They are - until they discover you are a reporter. Few reporters have developed enough expertise to pass their technical muster. We don't even know how to ask good questions, they say.
They have a point. Pilots spend thousands of dollars to put their planes in the air. They have had to learn to use some pretty sophisticated devices like radar, automatic pilots, fuel and navigation systems. Many are proficient in maintenance. They are exacting people. They make life and death decisions. They know they can't make a mistake. And, they reason, neither should reporters.
Where to start
Start by taking plane rides at local airports. They are not expensive. They are a great way to win sources, especially if you decide to go to ground school, the precursor to flight school.
Next, find out what businesses are at the airport. Build a spreadsheet of companies, addresses, phone numbers, names of employees, description of what they do. Make sure you know who handles security, janitorial services, baggage, fuel, maintenance, snowplows, bird control and the control tower.
Since your newsroom probably has limited its aviation coverage to earnings and plane orders and a few service problems at local airlines, you may have a lot to learn. To get a handle on how many pilots and planes there are in your area, get the pilot and aircraft registration databases from NICAR or another suitable source.
Jane's "All The World's Aircraft," provides detailed information about 1,400 civilian and military airplanes around the globe. Through the online site, the yearbook costs $445, the CD-ROM $1,145. (The book is also available at most public libraries.) With the information, you can build files and start another spreadsheet listing popular planes.
Accident data
How often are these small private planes in accidents?
You'll find the answer at the National Transportation Safety Board's Web page. For starters, study the accidents and incidents by using the query form so you can look for specific airplanes. You can even look for things like "probable cause." Then do like many veteran aviation reporters do - track the accidents on a daily basis.
For example, between Friday, Aug. 28 and Sunday, Aug. 30, there were 20 accidents listed. In four of those accidents, a total of seven people died. More than half those accidents involved Cessnas, Pipers and Beeches - three of the most widely used private airplanes in the United States.
After a crash, safety board officials examine the scene and debris. Sometimes they can make immediate pronouncements. Most often they can't. This creates an uproar with reporters who want juicy new details for deadline.
Sometimes it takes months or years to figure out which part failed first and why. That's why the safety board won't speculate on deadline and why anyone who covers aviation should have a broad general knowledge to fill in those deadline gaps.
Private pilots are one part of aviation's biggest safety problems, according to both the safety board and the Transportation Department's Office of the Inspector General. The pilots, through inexperience or inattention, end up where they don't belong including in the flight paths of incoming jets. These are often called runway incursions.
If an accident is big enough the safety board opens up a docket that includes a stunning array of documents like tests on broken equipment and statements from people involved in the accident. The dockets for some accidents are available on CD-ROM or in report form.
The FAA assists, but is rarely in charge of an accident investigation. But the agency is useful for other reasons. Its job is to enforce the FARs federal aviation regulations - that govern general aviation. Most of the regulations affecting private pilots are contained in Part 91 of the FARs, often the least restrictive of all the FAA regulations.
If a crash involves some kind of maintenance problem, the FAA may have already issued information to pilots in the form of an advisory circular or a mandatory order to fix the problem called an airworthiness directive. They may be searched on the FAA's Web site.
The FAA's Accident and Incident database is also useful, because it tracks events involving individuals, as well as major aircraft. But don't look for any service difficulty reports - private pilots don't have the reporting requirements that commercial airlines do. That data may be obtained through NICAR or another processing service.
Freedom of Information requests should be filed with the FAA to get enforcement action against the pilot or mechanic or the airline. While there are some privacy issues that limit disclosure, few news organizations file a FOIA for enforcement documents so there is almost always a story.
If your airport is one of the 100 biggest in the U.S., information about it is available on the CD-ROM "The 1998 ACE Plan - Aviation Capacity Enhancement CD-ROM and Airport Database."
The airport layout is a nice graphic to keep in a computer file for emergencies like crashes or collisions.
General aviation issues affecting private pilots and their planes get lots of ink, if you know where to look. The Flight Safety Foundation, which issues monthly reports on aviation safety, frequently focuses on private pilots. The reports are worth reading and saving because they frequently reprise safety board reports in a less technical, more easily understandable format.
From time to time, the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, examines a private pilot issue, or an issue relating to small single and twin-engine aircraft.
Questions to ask
With this basic information, here are some questions to ask when a private plane crashes: What is the tailnumber? Serial number? What is the make and model of the plane? What is the make and model of the propeller or engine? Was there a flight plan? What were the pilot's ratings? How many hours in this model plane? How many other ratings did the pilot have? How did the pilot load the airplane? Is there a possibility that the plane was overloaded or that its weight and balance was not properly calculated? How much fuel was in the plane when it took off? Was there enough? Was there any past disciplinary action against the pilot? Were any service bulletins issued by the engine or plane manufacturer? How many hours/cycles since the last engine overhaul or repair? Has the FAA issued any advisory circulars or airworthiness directives? How often has this plane/model been in an accident before and what were the causes? What did the pilot do in the preceding 24-48 hours before the crash? If there is a manned tower, was there any conversation between the pilot and the controllers? Was this plane tracked on radar? What do the readings show? What were the plane's last known coordinates? How did it descend? Quickly? Did the pilot level off? Seem disoriented? Was there any kind of runway or airspace incursion? Based on what you see here, what is the piece of equipment you want to examine first? Was the rescue response appropriate? Did it contribute to the deaths? If the plane broke up what came off first? Where was it found? Had the pilot or a previous owner modified the airplane in any way? How many previous owners of the plane and engines? Why did they sell? What was the weather at the time of the accident? Was the pilot assigned a specific altitude?
When the plane goes down, your competition will report that a plane crashed. You will be able to tell readers or viewers about the most common problems with the planes, what the safety board has recommended to solve the problem and whether or not the FAA did anything about it safety issues people care about.
Elizabeth Marchak can be reached by e-mail at emarchak@mail.digizen.net