The irony of life sometimes rears its ugly head in strange ways. In the case of former U.S. Senator Ted Stevens irony played itself out in the circumstances surrounding his downed DeHavilland DHC-3T aircraft on Monday Aug. 9.
I remember reading a book called “Fate is the Hunter” by Ernest K. Gann when I was a young man that struck me as both prophetic and explanatory. The odd inexplicable aircraft disasters that resulted from unknown reasons that maybe spelled “fate,” were most often human error factors.
Sometimes aircraft that succumb to events that are uncontrollable and unexpected happen for simple reasons, spilled coffee on an autopilot, bird strikes, or explosive canisters of gas on cargo aircraft.
While the National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the events, action and results of the remains of the General Communication’s Incorporated aircraft we are left with several undeniable facts.
The aircraft that Ted Stevens was flying in was not equipped with ADS-B and was reported by an Anchorage newspaper to have ground proximity warning equipment. There are no reports at this time of the aircraft’s Emergency Locator Beacon signaling that it had made a sudden impact, the weather was really bad, and no one took notice of the fact that aircraft was off schedule until it did not show back up at a lodge Northwest of Dillingham for dinner.
As many as 11 hours from the time of impact to the arrival and rescue by local pilots and fishermen have been reported.
Had the DHC-3 Otter had been ADS-B equipped FAA air traffic officials could have retraced the aircraft's flight path back to its last high frequency radio transmission providing the exact location of the aircraft.
This was just not supposed to happen in this era of NexGen aviation technology, and right in Sen. Stevens’ backyard.
In the aviation world an unplanned flight into terrain is called a Controlled Flight Into Terrain or CFIT. The Stevens DeHavilland aircraft made its final flight in this manner. Odd and ironic that Stevens who survived a 1978 Lear Jet crash at Anchorage International Airport, that claimed wife Ann Stevens and four others would die from a CFIT in Southwestern Alaska.
While in the U.S Senate Stevens funneled hundreds of millions of federal dollars into research and development of the Alaska Capstone Safety program to prevent the very type of accident that killed him. CFIT or known flight into Instrument Flight Rule weather that tricks pilots into “scud” running under the clouds eventually the story usually ends tragically. Stevens championed the efforts to reduce or eradicate these types of accidents.
The Capstone Safety Program devised the use of digital signals transmitted and received on very high frequencies also linked to a Global Positioning System that shows pilots on a multi-function display screen the surrounding terrain on a moving map, weather and other like equipped aircraft.
This is called Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B). Now adopted by the Federal Aviation Administration as the NextGen solution the Capstone equipment is a real-time digital alternative for radar on the ground and with ADS-B equipped aircraft.
Additionally the FAA dismantled the Alaska Capstone Safety Program several years ago to support installation of ADS-B in the Gulf of Mexico where helicopters service private offshore oil rigs. This came despite the fact that the program was designed to curtail CFIT accidents like Otter's flight into terrain. The program was also awarded the coveted Collier Trophy by the U.S. National Aeronautics Association in 2008.
Now here is yet another irony, Ted Stevens and the pilot of the fateful DHC-3, Terry Smith were both outspoken strong proponents of aviation safety. Stevens was a decorated C-46, C-47 pilot during the WWII, who recently got his float rating and Smith had 29,000 hours of logged flight time most of it in Alaska.
Both Stevens and Smith supported the Medallion Foundation created by the Alaska Air Carriers Association that has an aviation safety mission. The Medallion Foundation also received financial support from Congress to help reduce CFIT type accidents in Alaska among the Part 135 (10 passengers or more aircraft) commercial operations.
Thus, one can deduct that despite the advances in technology, and the advent of newer navigation and surveillance techniques the one fallable aspect of aviation pilotage is human error.
In Alaska usually this lines up to be a checklist of trying to beat bad weather by flying into inclement weather, stress due to pushy passengers, failure to check weather before a flight using FAA Flight Service Station briefings, filing a flight plan, or checking aviation weather cameras along the aircraft’s intended route.
We may never know the exact circumstances of the fateful demise of the final flight of N455A but I am sure that former Senator Ted Stevens and pilot Terry Smith would want full discloser of the results of the NTSB investigation into their downed aircraft for future safety seminars and procedures.
Rob Stapleton can be reached at: robstapleton @alaska.net
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