16 Aug

It’s times like these that I really wish I was a better writer. Anything I say seems so inadequate, but maybe that is true for many things in life. We experience everything in the context of our previous experiences so our ability to relate is necessarily limited. Maybe that is why I am having such a hard time processing what happened on the 14^th. About 4 PM we were all told to meet at the flight line at which point we learned that aircraft 171 had crashed during a test flight with no survivors. It all seemed so surreal like a dream I was going to wake up from. It happened about 1 mile away from our hanger in the traffic pattern so quite a few guys from the company saw it. There was a lot of milling around while we waited for everyone to show up and the stories started to circulate – one of the crew was switched earlier in the day so he ended up not on it, Stanley from the engine shop jumped on at the last minute to do some checks. It all seemed so random. Brian saw the whole thing from the ground and I know he was thinking if he hadn’t flown a mission that day it would have been him doing the test flight. If I hadn’t been on a night mission I would have been giving Jackie his check ride. There are so many what ifs but all we do know is that God chose to take Jackie, Chris, Sean, Steve, and Stanley from us. I have known other pilots and crew-members who have died but never while I was in the same unit with them, much less talking with them just hours prior. It’s hard for me to comprehend the suddenness and finality of it. It’s like turning off a light switch – one minute they are here and the next they are gone, never to come back. An investigation team arrived within hours and they requested our safety officer, tactical operations officer and a maintenance representative. It certainly wasn’t something I wanted to do but Brian knew Jackie a lot better than I did and he had no desire to go. We rolled out in a Marine convoy and got to the site just before dark. My main job was to identify aircraft parts. Most of the aircraft was destroyed in the post-crash fire but it was coming apart prior to impacting the ground. I can’t go into more detail at this time due to the investigation. The command is pushing for night test flights. I did one last night – not fun and not a good idea in my book. If it was a component failure we need to know soon to get it fixed – people’s confidence in the aircraft is a little shaken. Please pray for the families.

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