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Facility. The plan was to arrive at 7M7 for lunch at the Darling factory, which used our paint in manufacturing. I planned to get pizza and drinks for the paint crew, shake hands with the managers, and then leave with my family for the East Coast for a combo vacation/business trip.
I had landed at Piggott more than 50 times before and never had a problem with the short 2,500 ft runway. To be forthright, it was a piece of cake. I’d landed there so often that this beautifully clear, no-wind day would be a no-brainer. And it needed to be because, you guessed it, I left my brain back in Texas.
I approached Runway 18 and touched down just past the road bordering the north end. The approach was normal, on speed, full flaps, and the touchdown was particularly nice. But, upon touchdown, the left brake went entirely to the floor with no braking effect, while the right brake worked perfectly. The airplane lurched right, and I added left pedal to keep the Mirage on the pavement. I added right brake and more left pedal, doing everything I could to maintain directional control and stop the airplane before the pavement ended. It was an unpracticed dance on the top of the right pedal and bottom of the left pedal, and I was not dancing well.
There was a 20-foot ditch at the end of the runway and a more shallow one on the right side of the runway. With the tiny bit of brain that I brought on this flight, I quickly deduced that I would not stop before the runway ended. I thought briefly about shoving the throttle forward and doing a touch-and-go, but that seemed impossible since I was already so slow. I committed to doing everything I could to stop.
Time seemed to slow down more than the airplane, and I can remember the whole scene in slow-motion. But, I could not apply enough “slow motion” to the big Piper, as it just didn’t have enough braking action to stop before the end of the runway. At the very end, I applied enough right brake to cause the airplane to depart the pavement and dive into the ditch on the right side of the runway.
I wasn’t going more than five mph when I went in the ditch, but you’d have thought I was going 100 mph with the resulting force. The front of the airplane hit the opposite side of the ditch and came to an abrupt stop. The wings held the aircraft up, lying in the mud on the opposite embankment, both main wheels
suspended above the trench.
I looked up, and everyone in the airplane was okay -- until we all saw the blood coming from my forehead. In those milliseconds between my head traveling with the rest of my body and when the aircraft came to an abrupt halt, the soft area of my head between my eyes impacted the glare shield. Blood was now spurting wherever I turned my head. My 7-year-old son was just
fine until he saw me bleeding. That’s when the screaming started. Nevertheless, I moved to the back of the airplane, opened the door, and ushered everyone out. We were all okay, except for me and the one-inch gash between my eyes. It was a superficial wound, but that part of the face bleeds a lot and was hard to stop.
Outside the airplane, I got the first glimpse of my handi- work. It was the first time I had bent metal on any aircraft, and I was in a state of shock. All sorts of terrible thoughts entered my mind. Was my career over? Will I ever fly again? Will insurance pay? How do I face my family again?
I didn’t have much time to ponder those thoughts before the whole world showed up. At first, there were police cars, then news cameras, and then people just began pulling off the nearby road to do some rubbernecking. They were actu- ally driving onto the runway to see what had happened. It was only a short time until 20 to 30 cars were on the run- way. All the drivers were looking at me, taking pictures, and seemingly pointing out to everyone else whose fault it was for this tragedy. A good crowd for a little town like Piggott, eh? If you cause a scene in Small Town USA, you might as well do it right. I did right, alright; there was not enough “left” on this landing.
And then some friends began to show up. The gawkers departed, realizing the show was over. The police scurried people away from the scene, the civil air patrol came to turn off the ELT (yes, it worked), and then a guy with a crane showed up. A few local pilots gave me some “we un- derstand” affirmations. I’ve got some neat mental pictures of that Mirage being lifted out of the ditch, and it warms my heart thinking of how good people came to help. Soon the airplane was sitting on the small tarmac on the north end of the airport, and I was embarrassingly riding in an ambulance to the Piggott Hospital. I was fine, but the police said I should go just in case. They performed a C.T. scan of my head (and found a brain). I had brought it with me; I just failed to use it. Thankfully, my only medical problem was the permanent scar between my eyes.
That night I found a small hotel and lay awake, reliving scenes from the accident. After a sleepless night, I awaited the FAA Aviation Safety Inspector (ASI) to arrive the next day. The ASI showed up, just as he said he would, and I met him at the airplane. He asked me a bunch of questions,
June 2023 / TWIN & TURBINE • 11