AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2019 - 20

PROFICIENT PILOT

Fate is the hunter

BY BARRY SCHIFF

It could have been me
THOSE OF YOU WHO READ MY MONTHLY QUIZ, "Test
Pilot," know that I have a penchant for minutiae and
fascinating factoids. I have always been like that, and
this has been both a blessing and a curse. My first aviation employer, Paul Bell, owned the flight school where
I learned to fly. He took delight in telling people at the
airport that I knew more stuff that no one cared about
than anyone he had ever known.
Beyond being a great pilot, Paul also was an extemporaneous speaker and a skillful chess player-he could
play six games against six players at the same time.
I obtained my commercial pilot certificate on my
eighteenth birthday in June 1956, and shortly thereafter was scheduled to operate a short charter flight in a

My red, white, and blue airplane provided a
renewed sense of freedom.

BARRY SCHIFF

has been writing for
AOPA Pilot for 56
years. This month
marks the anniversary.

20 | AOPA PILOT May 2019

Cessna 180. It involved picking up two Aeronutronic
employees at California's Orange County Airport (now
John Wayne Airport) near Disneyland and returning
them to Santa Monica, my home airport. I was unable
to take that flight, however, because I was recovering
from minor surgery. (OK. It was a nose job.) Paul took
the flight in my stead. It was a spectacular day over the
Los Angeles Basin, but that did not prevent the pilots of
our Cessna 180 and a Piper Tri-Pacer from attempting
to occupy the same chunk of airspace at the same time.
All aboard both aircraft were killed.
I have thought often about that flight. Each time
I conclude that the midair collision would not have
occurred had I been the pilot. I would not have flown
the identical route at the identical time and at the identical speed necessary for fate to have delivered those
airplanes to exactly the same place at the same time.
Paul would not have been killed, and I would not have
had to drive to his home to convey the tragic news
to his wife and children-two little girls. I would not
wish such heart-wrenching duty on my worst enemy.
***
N707BS was a brand-new American Champion
Explorer, a 7GCBC Citabria that I had purchased as a
present to myself in celebration of my retirement from
TWA in 1998. It was a special airplane, the first Citabria
equipped and certified for IFR flight.

In many ways, trading heavy iron for a pair of personal wings was an improvement. My red, white, and
blue airplane provided a renewed sense of freedom. It
unshackled me from having to fly strictly by numbers
and computer solutions. I was no longer straightjacketed by regulations and a company policy manual. I now
could whimsically chase a cloud or point a wing tip at
something on the ground and turn it into a pylon.
I had seven happy years cavorting about California
in my new airplane, but it became outrageously expensive. Monthly hangar rent at Santa Monica rose to
$1,800 and kept climbing, and tying down a fabric-covered airplane was out of the question. Compounding
the problem was the city's adversarial attitude, a war
of attrition designed to force aircraft owners based at
the airport to pick up and leave. The time had come
to begrudgingly sell N707BS. The buyer was based at
Crest Airpark in Kent, Washington, and the delivery
flight along the Pacific Coast created the last precious
memories of my beloved Citabria.
Two years later-on November 20, 2007, to be
exact-the new owner of the airplane and a passenger were cruising southwesterly at 1,500 feet above
Commencement Bay north of Tacoma. At the same
time and place, a Cessna 182A was cruising northwesterly at the same altitude. Following the collision, the
Cessna pilot was able to land his crippled airplane at a
nearby airport. The Citabria pilot could not maintain
altitude but had barely enough control to make a survivable ditching. He and his passenger exited in time to
notice that the vertical stabilizer and rudder were missing from the sinking airplane. The crew of a nearby boat
plucked them from the water.
N707BS now rests at the bottom of Commencement
Bay at a depth of 461 feet-too deep to warrant salvaging.
Hangar lawyers claim that the Cessna pilot was
responsible for the collision because the Citabria was
to his right, which, of course, is absurd. Right-of-way
regulations apply only when the pilot of at least one
of two intercepting aircraft sees the other in time to
avoid conflict.
During my career I have been indirectly associated
with two midair collisions. Fate, however, seems to suggest that things happen in threes. If that is so, then I
must be especially diligent about not allowing fate to
more directly have its way with me.
AOPA
www.barryschiff.com

http://www.barryschiff.com

AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2019