Iwas once a “flying salesman,” one of the coolest job titles ever. But when I took that job, I was hung up on the word “salesman.” I had never considered myself in sales, but it took me about a year to understand how great it was. A flying salesman gets to use an airplane to shake more hands, do more deals, and create more sales. And someone else pays for the flying. How cool is that?
I worked for a coatings manufacturer in East Texas, and my job was to use a Piper Mirage to fly all over the USA to visit manufacturing facilities that dipped, sprayed, or poured our paint during the final steps of their manufacturing process. I flew more than 500 hours a year in that Mirage, visiting clients who have become some of my best friends. I dovetailed aviation into work and loved every minute of it. At least I loved it until I made a poor decision one day. A decision that cost me my magic carpet.
On the last two trips in my Mirage, I experienced softness in the brakes upon landing. The brakes were firm when taxiing for takeoff, but upon landing, there was a softness that I knew was not wanted. So, I took my Mirage to the mechanic, who then bled the system, reported no issues, and handed me back the airplane.
I flew another flight, and the same problem happened again, soft brakes upon landing. I returned the airplane to the same mechanic who bled the system again, tightened all the nuts and bolts related to the brake system, and handed me the plane again with a clean bill of health.
I then loaded up my wife and three young boys in that Mirage and flew from the Cherokee County Airport (KJSO) to the Piggott Airport (7M7) in Arkansas, an airport that sports a 2,500ft runway, a few open t-hangars, and some crop dusters. Those crop dusters support the many farming communities in this gem of a small town located in the nutrient-rich soil of the Mississippi River floodplains. And the deep ditches on the sides and end of the 2,500 ft runway at this little crop-dusting aerodrome didn’t concern a vastly experienced (and entirely humble) pro pilot such as myself — even after the soft brake issues.
The Piggott Airport is within walking distance of my objective, the L.A. Darling Store Fixtures Manufacturing 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 handiwork. 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 actually driving onto the runway to see what had happened. It was only a short time until 20 to 30 cars were on the runway. 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 understand” 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,
almost all of those questions having to do with my emotional recovery (nice guy), and then he proceeded to enter the airplane. He climbed up into the left front seat and pushed on the brakes. I’m so thankful that the left brake went to the floor as it did on my fateful landing. That was all the ASI needed to see to determine that I was not fabricating a story. His report listed the crash as a “brake failure,” and I took pride that it didn’t say “pilot error.”
I kept my sanity by telling myself that it wasn’t my fault, that I was a good pilot, and that this could happen to anyone. For years I kept up this talk whenever the story of the crash would come up in conversation. But, as every pilot should hope, our emotional maturity increases, and we can see a tragedy with a clear set of eyes. With more maturity and emotional health, I can describe what caused that crash. And it was not a brake failure.
The cause of that crash was that I didn’t perform a brake check. That’s it. It is as simple as that—a brake check. Every pro pilot knows that a brake check is mandatory before every landing. Read any checklist from any airplane built in the last 50 years that can have a single point of failure (nearly 90 percent of planes flown by readers of this article!), and in that landing checklist will be a brake check. A pilot should know the condition of the brakes before every landing.
Why? Aside from plain old good aviation technique, a brake check is required in every pressurized airplane with one tire on each trunnion because the pressurized air in the cabin tries to equalize air pressure at all times, and it will gladly take any path of least resistance. Air can escape through the seal along the door, through the rubber gaskets at the openings where the flight controls travel, and that same air will fill a brake cylinder if there is a crack in the rubber o-rings surrounding the shaft entering the wheel cylinder.
That happened to me. A 30-cent o-ring had cracked, allowing pressurized air to enter the left brake cylinder and fill it with air. When I pushed on the brake, the compressible air compressed, and there was no braking action on only the left brake. 30 cents. OMG. A failure in a 30-cent part caused my Mirage to crash.
It was a contributing factor, but it was not the deciding factor. At the end of the analysis, the deciding factor was me. I should have chosen a different airport than the Piggott Airport. I’d used that airport successfully many times, but it only took one time for Murphy to show up and spoil the party. When operating in an environment with little margin, everything must be right. There’s no way I should have considered landing at Piggott with a known soft brake. I could have easily landed at Kennett Memorial (KTKX), which had a 5000 ft runway (along with super-cheap fuel) and was only 15 miles away.
But I was in a rush. I had a lunch engagement to meet. I was ready to serve pizza and shake hands. I was prepared to take care of the paint business, not the business of flying the airplane.
That brings us to your aviation story. Do you operate with little margin? Are you operating at max gross weight on every flight? Are you landing at the end of fuel range frequently? Are you pushing weather minimums routinely? Are you flying single-engine piston aircraft at night or over mountainous terrain? Do you fly over the Great Lakes without a raft? Do you get a cheapo-BFR each year, never really being challenged? Are you flying late in your circadian rhythms? Have you practiced an engine-out event lately? Do your O2 systems have sufficient pressure? Are you wearing your shoulder harness on takeoff and landing?
I operated on a short runway with a heavy airplane and left myself with no outs. If anything went wrong, I was going to be in the ditch. One o-ring on the left brake was all it took to put me in the ditch.
Where can you add margin to your aviation life? Where can you add margin so you don’t end up in the ditch?
I’m happy to report that my beloved Mirage is flying today. It got a new wing and engine and has flown many hours for subsequent owners. I occasionally hear my old familiar N-number on the radio as I fly around Texas, and I check on it now and then on FlightAware and see that it is serving its owners well. That airplane was so good to me for so many years. I can only wish I had been as good to it as it was to me.
I never knew about the problem of pressurized air getting into the braking system, and it bothered me that I had flown with some great instructors and never learned this nuance. Upon reflection, they probably did make me aware, but I most likely forgot or overlooked that important training. So, I began to teach others about my crash. Most other pilots did not know about this potentially devastating brake system issue. I decided to be a better CFI and open up my own flight training company, mostly because I wanted to help others who didn’t know what they didn’t know.
I turned this terrible crash into a career that still serves me today. I dedicated myself to training the owner-flown community of pilots, and that niche of beautiful people has been so good to me over the years. Without this crash, I’d probably still be that arrogant pilot who thought only idiots could crash an airplane. I am far more understanding, more humble, and a less judgmental pilot because of that crash. It prepared me to be a better CFI.
Good things can come from an awful event. What good can you create in your life after reading my tale of woe that turned into a story of goodness? Where can you add margin to your life?
