The bumper sticker tells us a bad day flying is better than a good day at the office. I think most pilots would agree, however, there can be bad days flying and there can be really bad days flying. If the latter involves bending an airplane, there are things to do after the airplane stops and the dust cloud departs. There also are things you can to help prevent the event in the first place. Once “something” happens, however, your priorities need to change.
The new ones generally should be start with getting medical assistance for injured passengers, beginning the process of surviving and being rescued if in a remote area, securing the aircraft/wreckage, notifying your insurance company, determining if you are obligated to notify governmental authorities and deciding whether to file an ASRS/NASA report. Pretty much in that order.
At some point you also may have the less-than-delightful experience of being approached by local law enforcement, angry landowners, the media and/or the FAA because of the event. As with anything aviation-related, a little planning can go a long way toward managing the risk of such an event. And once the event happens, the risks change dramatically.
Evacuate
As the accident is happening, do everything you can to keep making the airplane go where you want it to go. The clich “fly it all the way into the crash” is true. Another way to say it is “fly it until all the parts stop moving.” It also means you don’t try to get out of the aircraft until it stops—jumping or being thrown clear during an impact run-out is almost certain to be fatal, despite popular media stories over the years.
Once the aircraft stops, turn off the fuel and master switch to reduce the risk of fire. Then help your passengers get out and away from the airplane. If doors are jammed, kick out a window. Fortunately, even though airplanes always burn in the movies, it not common in real life, nevertheless, stay away from the airplane until you’re confident it’s not going to burn.
If you have a seriously injured passenger, you’ll have to make the decision whether or not to try to move him or her—weighing the risk of fire against the risk of making the injuries worse. Use your judgment.
If there is a fire and the crash, fire, rescue crews arrive—let them fight the fire. Don’t wade in trying to assist. You’re the expert on flying airplanes; they are the experts on fighting fires. What you can do is tell them the location of the fuel tanks and any oxygen bottles.
Care for the Injured
If there are injuries, try to contact emergency services to get help on the way. If you can do so in a minute or so via cell phone of the aircraft radios, do it. Otherwise, start first aid treatment for the injured. Again, use your judgment.
Once you’ve dealt with the urgent matters, take a deep breath and assess the situation. If you’re in the boonies, start thinking about survival and rescue. You should be wearing your survival vest, so you have survival and signaling equipment on your person. But detailed wilderness survival for pilots is beyond the scope of this article. Instead, we’d suggest the non-profit foundation Equipped to Survive and its Web site www.equipped.org.
Secure the Aircraft
There are many online tales of someone landing a perfectly good airplane gear-up, causing minimal damage. But the recovery crew caused additional—perhaps total—damage because they’d never done it before.
Protect the aircraft from further damage. Resist well-meaning folks from moving it to reopen a runway or the airport until you’ve spoken to your insurance company and—to the extent required—the authorities and have approval to move it. If there is any risk of vandalism or theft, work with your insurer and authorities to have a guard posted or get it into a locked hangar.
When you have time, use your cell phone to take photos from all angles—it doesn’t hurt to also walk slowly around the aircraft while taking a video.
Call Your Insurer and Aviation Attorney
No matter how cool and calm you think you are, you aren’t going to be at top form mentally after bending an airplane. It’s a fact of life. That means you want to marshal all assets available to you to avoid doing something foolish. Your insurance agent/broker is your first point of contact and will help you do the right things immediately after the accident. Your agent will notify the insurance carrier (your policy probably requires that the insurer be notified of an incident or accident within a certain period of time in order for you to be covered). Within a day or so, the insurance company will assign a claims representative that you’ll work with to get the airplane repaired or pay you if it’s a total loss—although that’s a process that you don’t need to worry about in the immediate aftermath of the event.
An aviation attorney will help you protect your financial interests and in any dealings you may need to have with the NTSB, FAA, law enforcement and your insurance company. While your insurance company’s claim representative will do his or her best to help you, that person’s fiduciary responsibility is to the insurer, not you. An attorney’s obligation is to you. If you are an AOPA member, we think the AOPA’s Legal Services plan is worth the annual subscription fee. It will help you find an aviation attorney in the area and pays for a certain amount of legal services for just this situation.
Notify the NTSB?
Following a crunch, it seems like there are always a half-dozen people eager to call the FAA to notify it of an “accident.” That’s simply wrong. If what has happened is an accident, the agency to notify is the NTSB.
The question is whether notification is required at all. There’s no reason to bring yourself to the attention of the NTSB (which will probably tell the FAA) if you’re not required to do so. Part 830 of the NTSB regulations (49 CFR Part 830) sets out what notification must be provided to the NTSB and calls for it to be done immediately. The sidebar on page 17 can give you an idea of what requires notification.
If the event you have experienced does not fall within the parameters defined in those regs, the NTSB doesn’t want to hear about it. It’s short-handed as it is. If it gets notified, it has to investigate, and will probably delegate the investigation to the FAA, something that will require time and energy on your part and may not be pleasant.
So what triggers the need for notification? First, the event has to be while you were operating the aircraft for the purpose of flight. If you were taxiing to the gas pump, the brakes failed, you crashed into the pumps and started a fire that destroyed five airplanes, it’s not a reportable accident.
If you were operating the airplane for the purpose of flight there has to be “substantial damage” to the aircraft or “serious injury” to people to reach the NTSB’s definition of “accident,” making it reportable. If the damage or injury doesn’t reach that trigger, it’s not an accident, it’s an incident and there’s no need whatsoever to get the NTSB (or FAA) involved.
“Substantial damage” as defined by the NTSB is truly substantial—major repairs are required and the damage has to affect the structural strength, performance or flight characteristics of the aircraft. As you read the rule, it becomes obvious it was written to require more damage than occurs in most gear-up landings or simple ground loops. It specifically excludes engine failures as a reportable accident. Again, the sidebar on page 17 has additional details.
As a result, before you look up the phone number for the nearest NTSB office, take some time to determine if you have had a reportable accident. While the regulation calls for “immediate” notification, common sense says “immediate” doesn’t kick in until you determine whether the event you’ve had falls into the reportable category. Keep in mind that there are some events that require immediate notification of the NTSB even though you handled them and landed safely: an in-flight fire or a flight control system malfunction or failure are two that may affect a general aviation pilot.
You do not need to have an accident report from the NTSB to collect from your insurance company. If your airplane is parked on the ramp and a gust front comes through and flips it, it’s not a reportable accident—and your insurer isn’t going to require that you notify the NTSB. Even if the event you experienced was a reportable accident—and you notified the NTSB—the NTSB report probably won’t come out for 18 months. By then your insurance company should long ago have paid for repairs and had you flying again.
One of the reasons for calling an aviation attorney is that there may be a law in the state where you had your incident that requires notification of local law enforcement.
Giving a Statement
It’s possible that authorities will press you for a statement within a short time of arriving at the scene of the event. Be polite (being rude often causes law enforcement or FAA inspectors to assume a pilot is trying to hide something). However, listen to your attorney’s recommendation—which may be to indicate that you will speak with them later. Pilots tend to want to be cooperative and have been known to dig themselves a hole with the FAA by running their mouths following a fender-bender incident. If a tire blew during rollout causing the incident, the pilot doesn’t help himself by volunteering that a half hour earlier he’d flown under a bridge. In addition, the intense embarrassment and/or guilt a pilot feels at even scratching the paint of an airplane can lead to a pilot thinking he’s just fine, but when asked the sum of two plus two will lead him to respond “12.” Give yourself time to make sure you haven’t been injured and are thinking straight before talking with authorities.
The Media
By and large there is no upside to speaking to the media after you’ve ridden through some sort of accident. Few beat reporters have the specialized knowledge to ask intelligent questions about aviation matters and most of whatever answers you give are going to wind up on the cutting room floor. The chances of you coming across on television as the coolest pilot in history are minuscule—you’re much more likely to give the appearance of a confused dolt. If you do say something foolish, it will be used against you by the FAA and anyone who has a mind to sue you.
Don’t forget that everyone has a cell phone video camera—post accident is a very good time to keep your mouth shut. You do not want to become a YouTube sensation as the poster boy for stupid general aviation pilot comments.
Conclusion
Pilots are used to having memory items on emergency checklists. The memory items for an after-accident checklist are: shut off the fuel and the master switch; get your passengers and yourself out of the airplane; care for the injured; take initial steps for survival and rescue; secure the aircraft and call your insurer and aviation attorney.
Pilots have a pretty good track record of staying focused and handling the memory items on their checklists in an emergency. Post-accident is the same way—pilots have done heroic things such as getting passengers out of burning airplanes. But once the immediate danger is past and the adrenaline is dissipating, they may make mistakes that have lasting implications. That’s when it’s time to pull out the written checklist and follow the next steps in the after-accident procedure.
Rick Durden holds an ATP and CFII. He’s been practicing aviation law for 36 years, but we don’t hold that against him.
The bumper sticker tells us a bad day flying is better than a good day at the office. I think most pilots would agree, however, there can be bad days flying and there can be really bad days flying. If the latter involves bending an airplane, there are things to do after the airplane stops and the dust cloud departs. There also are things you can to help prevent the event in the first place. Once “something” happens, however, your priorities need to change.
The new ones generally should be start with getting medical assistance for injured passengers, beginning the process of surviving and being rescued if in a remote area, securing the aircraft/wreckage, notifying your insurance company, determining if you are obligated to notify governmental authorities and deciding whether to file an ASRS/NASA report. Pretty much in that order.
At some point you also may have the less-than-delightful experience of being approached by local law enforcement, angry landowners, the media and/or the FAA because of the event. As with anything aviation-related, a little planning can go a long way toward managing the risk of such an event. And once the event happens, the risks change dramatically.
Evacuate
As the accident is happening, do everything you can to keep making the airplane go where you want it to go. The clich “fly it all the way into the crash” is true. Another way to say it is “fly it until all the parts stop moving.” It also means you don’t try to get out of the aircraft until it stops—jumping or being thrown clear during an impact run-out is almost certain to be fatal, despite popular media stories over the years.
Once the aircraft stops, turn off the fuel and master switch to reduce the risk of fire. Then help your passengers get out and away from the airplane. If doors are jammed, kick out a window. Fortunately, even though airplanes always burn in the movies, it not common in real life, nevertheless, stay away from the airplane until you’re confident it’s not going to burn.
If you have a seriously injured passenger, you’ll have to make the decision whether or not to try to move him or her—weighing the risk of fire against the risk of making the injuries worse. Use your judgment.
If there is a fire and the crash, fire, rescue crews arrive—let them fight the fire. Don’t wade in trying to assist. You’re the expert on flying airplanes; they are the experts on fighting fires. What you can do is tell them the location of the fuel tanks and any oxygen bottles.
Care for the Injured
If there are injuries, try to contact emergency services to get help on the way. If you can do so in a minute or so via cell phone of the aircraft radios, do it. Otherwise, start first aid treatment for the injured. Again, use your judgment.
Once you’ve dealt with the urgent matters, take a deep breath and assess the situation. If you’re in the boonies, start thinking about survival and rescue. You should be wearing your survival vest, so you have survival and signaling equipment on your person. But detailed wilderness survival for pilots is beyond the scope of this article. Instead, we’d suggest the non-profit foundation Equipped to Survive and its Web site www.equipped.org.
Secure the Aircraft
There are many online tales of someone landing a perfectly good airplane gear-up, causing minimal damage. But the recovery crew caused additional—perhaps total—damage because they’d never done it before.
Protect the aircraft from further damage. Resist well-meaning folks from moving it to reopen a runway or the airport until you’ve spoken to your insurance company and—to the extent required—the authorities and have approval to move it. If there is any risk of vandalism or theft, work with your insurer and authorities to have a guard posted or get it into a locked hangar.
When you have time, use your cell phone to take photos from all angles—it doesn’t hurt to also walk slowly around the aircraft while taking a video.
Call Your Insurer and Aviation Attorney
No matter how cool and calm you think you are, you aren’t going to be at top form mentally after bending an airplane. It’s a fact of life. That means you want to marshal all assets available to you to avoid doing something foolish. Your insurance agent/broker is your first point of contact and will help you do the right things immediately after the accident. Your agent will notify the insurance carrier (your policy probably requires that the insurer be notified of an incident or accident within a certain period of time in order for you to be covered). Within a day or so, the insurance company will assign a claims representative that you’ll work with to get the airplane repaired or pay you if it’s a total loss—although that’s a process that you don’t need to worry about in the immediate aftermath of the event.
An aviation attorney will help you protect your financial interests and in any dealings you may need to have with the NTSB, FAA, law enforcement and your insurance company. While your insurance company’s claim representative will do his or her best to help you, that person’s fiduciary responsibility is to the insurer, not you. An attorney’s obligation is to you. If you are an AOPA member, we think the AOPA’s Legal Services plan is worth the annual subscription fee. It will help you find an aviation attorney in the area and pays for a certain amount of legal services for just this situation.
Notify the NTSB?
Following a crunch, it seems like there are always a half-dozen people eager to call the FAA to notify it of an “accident.” That’s simply wrong. If what has happened is an accident, the agency to notify is the NTSB.
The question is whether notification is required at all. There’s no reason to bring yourself to the attention of the NTSB (which will probably tell the FAA) if you’re not required to do so. Part 830 of the NTSB regulations (49 CFR Part 830) sets out what notification must be provided to the NTSB and calls for it to be done immediately. The sidebar on page 17 can give you an idea of what requires notification.
If the event you have experienced does not fall within the parameters defined in those regs, the NTSB doesn’t want to hear about it. It’s short-handed as it is. If it gets notified, it has to investigate, and will probably delegate the investigation to the FAA, something that will require time and energy on your part and may not be pleasant.
So what triggers the need for notification? First, the event has to be while you were operating the aircraft for the purpose of flight. If you were taxiing to the gas pump, the brakes failed, you crashed into the pumps and started a fire that destroyed five airplanes, it’s not a reportable accident.
If you were operating the airplane for the purpose of flight there has to be “substantial damage” to the aircraft or “serious injury” to people to reach the NTSB’s definition of “accident,” making it reportable. If the damage or injury doesn’t reach that trigger, it’s not an accident, it’s an incident and there’s no need whatsoever to get the NTSB (or FAA) involved.
“Substantial damage” as defined by the NTSB is truly substantial—major repairs are required and the damage has to affect the structural strength, performance or flight characteristics of the aircraft. As you read the rule, it becomes obvious it was written to require more damage than occurs in most gear-up landings or simple ground loops. It specifically excludes engine failures as a reportable accident. Again, the sidebar on page 17 has additional details.
As a result, before you look up the phone number for the nearest NTSB office, take some time to determine if you have had a reportable accident. While the regulation calls for “immediate” notification, common sense says “immediate” doesn’t kick in until you determine whether the event you’ve had falls into the reportable category. Keep in mind that there are some events that require immediate notification of the NTSB even though you handled them and landed safely: an in-flight fire or a flight control system malfunction or failure are two that may affect a general aviation pilot.
You do not need to have an accident report from the NTSB to collect from your insurance company. If your airplane is parked on the ramp and a gust front comes through and flips it, it’s not a reportable accident—and your insurer isn’t going to require that you notify the NTSB. Even if the event you experienced was a reportable accident—and you notified the NTSB—the NTSB report probably won’t come out for 18 months. By then your insurance company should long ago have paid for repairs and had you flying again.
One of the reasons for calling an aviation attorney is that there may be a law in the state where you had your incident that requires notification of local law enforcement.
Giving a Statement
It’s possible that authorities will press you for a statement within a short time of arriving at the scene of the event. Be polite (being rude often causes law enforcement or FAA inspectors to assume a pilot is trying to hide something). However, listen to your attorney’s recommendation—which may be to indicate that you will speak with them later. Pilots tend to want to be cooperative and have been known to dig themselves a hole with the FAA by running their mouths following a fender-bender incident. If a tire blew during rollout causing the incident, the pilot doesn’t help himself by volunteering that a half hour earlier he’d flown under a bridge. In addition, the intense embarrassment and/or guilt a pilot feels at even scratching the paint of an airplane can lead to a pilot thinking he’s just fine, but when asked the sum of two plus two will lead him to respond “12.” Give yourself time to make sure you haven’t been injured and are thinking straight before talking with authorities.
The Media
By and large there is no upside to speaking to the media after you’ve ridden through some sort of accident. Few beat reporters have the specialized knowledge to ask intelligent questions about aviation matters and most of whatever answers you give are going to wind up on the cutting room floor. The chances of you coming across on television as the coolest pilot in history are minuscule—you’re much more likely to give the appearance of a confused dolt. If you do say something foolish, it will be used against you by the FAA and anyone who has a mind to sue you.
Don’t forget that everyone has a cell phone video camera—post accident is a very good time to keep your mouth shut. You do not want to become a YouTube sensation as the poster boy for stupid general aviation pilot comments.
Conclusion
Pilots are used to having memory items on emergency checklists. The memory items for an after-accident checklist are: shut off the fuel and the master switch; get your passengers and yourself out of the airplane; care for the injured; take initial steps for survival and rescue; secure the aircraft and call your insurer and aviation attorney.
Pilots have a pretty good track record of staying focused and handling the memory items on their checklists in an emergency. Post-accident is the same way—pilots have done heroic things such as getting passengers out of burning airplanes. But once the immediate danger is past and the adrenaline is dissipating, they may make mistakes that have lasting implications. That’s when it’s time to pull out the written checklist and follow the next steps in the after-accident procedure.
Rick Durden holds an ATP and CFII. He’s been practicing aviation law for 36 years, but we don’t hold that against him.
