Yesterday at 2pm, friends and family gathered to place a memorial at Watsonville Community Hospital. Our hearts were heavy as my dad and I lowered the heavy marble plaque with their inscribed names into its resting place. I’m so glad the hospital has done this because before this, we really didn’t have a place to visit. I think it is the best place because it is just a few yards from where the airplane impacted. The marks are still there and I hope it’s a while before the parking lot is repaved.
I got to catch up with a lot of the family’s friends and associates. The CEO of the hospital and his staff were also there as was the owner of the clinic that they plane hit. I felt surrounded by love and support.
Later, we went to a Bonaire party for dinner. Just four days earlier my brother’s family had arrived from leading the trip. This type of party is scheduled for the people on the trip to get together again to look at and trade photos. That was also very nice to be with the family’s friends as they recounted stories and we looked at photos from the trip. Special thanks to the hosts of the party and all who came. It was a night of healing.
I also got some more insight on the crash after talking to Ed, one of David’s friends. He served in the military as a pilot and has over 10,000 hours of experience. He said that when you’re looking up at a fog bank that goes well over 1000 feet, you can lose your “attitude” (your sense of how steep you’re pointed). Pilots get a lot of that information by looking at the horizon and in this case, David couldn’t see it and was looking into a huge murky fog bank. It’s easy to lose your bearings and to lose track of how steep you are climbing. From the reports, David seemed like he was climbing too steep. By the way, I’ve come to understand that it is common practice for non-IFR rated pilots to fly over fog like this.
I’ve also been thinking of their stall at 500 feet and whether anyone could have recovered from it. Maybe a dog fighter pilot might have had the skill? The answer was there is very little chance of a recovery at that altitude regardless of the skill of the pilot. I read the post of another Mooney owner who was practicing stalls at 3000 feet and his plane went into an unexpected spin (as did my brother’s). It took 1200 feet to get his Mooney under control. This pilot was shocked and said he was going to be much higher from now on when practicing stalls. His post seemed to be a warning for Mooney owners. The plane is known for being fast and unforgiving.
Without knowing the cause of the accident, which we may never know, one potential answer to prevent this accident was not to take off. So why did he? Perhaps by the time he did his flight check, which can take 20 minutes, the fog was moving in quickly and he didn’t realize what the situation was until he was up against the fog at 500 feet. When you taxi out, you’re not facing the fog, but when you turn to take off, there it is. It’s hard to get depth perception on something that’s fuzzy, so perhaps it looked farther away than it was. I wish I knew what my brother’s thoughts were in this process. The manager of the airport says there is always much more at play in these situation than meets the eye.
Ed also said that David talked about having 240 hours under his belt rather than the 140 that has been talked about in the media. The NTSB is only just now getting the log book where David kept his hours. This will probably be clarified when the final NTSB report comes out next year.
A final insight was that David and DeDe liked the airplane because it allowed them to do much more with their time. David could do business in southern California in the morning and be back by lunch.
Anyway, enough about that (I know some of you don’t like those details and others do). At the Bonaire party, we had a great time talking about the family and trading stories. I learned that Luke read the sci-fi book, Dune, not long ago. That’s a hard book. Way to go, Luke! I tried to read it a long time ago and didn’t make it through. I later saw that there was a glossary in back that would have been great to study as I went along. Hopefully some day I’ll have time to read it, and I’ll do so in Luke’s honor. Thanks everybody for your love and support…
Thanks John, for sharing about the memorial. I went back to work in Watsonville today for the first time since the accident. I take the Airport Rd. Exit to my office and will pass the crash site every day, so I left a little extra time to stop. I felt sad and heavy as I was in the parking lot. But as I left, I looked towards the airport and saw a small plane just taking off. It seemed light, easy, floating up towards the clouds. I smiled, thinking of the moments before everything went wrong with David’s plane. The moments of anticipation of another successful take off, on the way to see family and nature. Then I blinked and realized there was not actually a plane taking off right then. I felt more at peace though. I hope I continue to see/feel them taking off for a smooth flight as I pass by. I hope the memorial tree and plaque brings some peace to you and your family too.