we don't need no stinking safety badges!

8/6/2019 We don't need no stinking safety badges!

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(Title) Safety badges? We dont need no stinking Safety badges!

The National Transportation Safety Board just released a summary report on the plane crash that took

the lives of Dr. Bruce Kennedy, NASCAR Aviation pilot Michael Klemm, and three others on the ground;

Janise Joseph-Woodard, her six-month-old son, and 4-year-old Gabriela Dechat, who lived next door to

Janise. In addition, the aircraft, and the two houses that it crashed into were all destroyed.

http://www.ntsb.gov/Pressrel/2009/090128b.html (press release)

http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/2009/AAR0901.htm (actual synopsis)

Before I begin this commentary, I should remind you that I have no intention of speaking il l of the

deceased. This is merely a recitation of information from the reports and sources quoted, and critique of

the events that transpired before and after the event in question occurred.

How it appears, from the NTSB report (links above), is that the Competition Liaison Services Bureau, the

commercial aviation wing of NASCAR, really dropped the ball here when it came to ensuring that Cessna

310R #N501N, originally built in 1977, and owned by the same Competition Liaison Services Bureau, that

they made sure that it was safe to fly over populationor even safe to fly, period.

That being saidwhat was NASCAR and its aviation department thinking? Im going to rely heavily upon

this NTSB report, but even they dont know exactly what brought the plane down. However, if this is

true, that there was something smoking in the cockpit, on the previous flight, the day before ,with said

event, according to the NTSB, being in a maintenance write-up performed after the initial Monday flight

by Van Brendle, NASCAR Aviation pilot, a copy of which was found in the downed plane, after the

accident. Yet NASCAR Aviation pilot Michael Klemm and Dr. Bruce Kennedy, even after seeing the

maintenance report outlining the burning problem, and aircraft mechanic Juan Solis telling Klemm that

there was a problem with the plane the very next morning (with Klemm reportedly telling Solis I dont

give a sh*t in reply)they took the plane up, anyway.?

Oops, I forgotSafety First!

(source below)

http://www.news-journalonline.com/special/planecrash/frtHEAD02051008.htm

And in addition, NASCARs lawsuit against Cessna, concerning NASCAR accusing Cessna of producing a

faulty plane, continues to this very day, after being moved to U.S. District court on 12-23-2008, in

addition to NASCAR suggesting that Cessna didnt alert NASCAR that there might have been bad wiringin the aircraft( an aircraft, by the way, which was built in 1977), in a separate report submitted by

NASCAR?

(Sources below)

http://dockets.justia.com/docket/court-flmdce/case_no-6:2008cv02165/case_id-221770/



http://www.news-journalonline.com/special/planecrash/newEAST04112708.htm

http://www.news-journalonline.com/special/planecrash/frtHEAD02051008.htm

After looking at whats been presented here.how is this plane crash Cessnas fault? According to the

NTSB, they have guidelines for dealing with this sort of problem, one of those guidelines being that the

plane should have been grounded until the cause of the original fire/smoke/smoldering had been

located and isolated. According to the NTSB report, had proper procedure been followed, or had

NASCARs aviation department simply investigated the cause of the original fire/smoldering, it might be

even a mere possibility that five good people would still be alive to this very day.

Think about it a moment.

Im going to look at this from a different point of view here. Imagine that I own a 1977 DodgeFordChevy

Disaster Magnum SS GT500 muscle car. This imaginary car came from the imaginary factory with

imaginary defective brakes, and I imaginarily didnt have a clue about these imaginary brake problems. I

just drove it, and lucky for me, I never had a problemup until a particular imaginary Saturday.

One of my real-life, half-wit sons goes and drives the car on an imaginary Friday, and due to the faulty

brakes on the car that might malfunction, while he is driving the car, he sails through a real-life

intersection, due to the imaginary brakes on the imaginary car finally malfunctioning, in real-life.

Fast forward to the next day, an imaginary Saturday evening.

Well, I want to go take my imaginary 1977 DodgeFordChevy Disaster Magnum SS GT500 to the store,

and fetch some snacks for the Sprint Cup Imagination 500 race thats coming on my imaginary 62 big-

screen TV in less than 20 minutes. So I go out to the car, hop in, and go to start the carand I find a

sticky note pasted to my imaginary, but plush, dash pad of my hot-rod.

Dad: Dont drive the car, the brakes went out on me yesterday! Ill talk to you when I get home from

work today!

I want those chips, to satisfy my imaginary snack-food hunger.now.

And in addition, my real-life, next-oldest son runs into the garage, and tells me to not drive the car, also,

citing his brothers imaginary near-death experience with the car in the real-life intersection yesterday.

Im getting a little annoyed now, because I know a heck of a lot more about this imaginary car than my

real-life sons doand besides, Im just trying to sneak off to the store for food that my real-life wifeimaginarily doesnt want me to have, anyway.

So I start the car, pull out of the driveway, and hammer the gas, because the race is about to start, and

Lord knows, in reality, nobody ever wants to miss the entertainment screeching out their particular

version of the Star-Strangled Banner before the race, do they?



And as I come up to the first intersectionand Im thinking about how I wish an imaginary produce truck

would fall out of the sky, and land on the real-life Jimmie JohnsonI move my foot to hit the

brakes...and the pedal goes to the floor

The aftermath?

I almost died in the resulting collision with a mini-van driven by a mother, and its also full of kids.

While I eventually recovered..the five kids in the mini-van didnt make it.

And now, instead of looking at my own mistakes, and how I should have first parked the car, and then

contacted an attorney the followingMonday to start legal action against the manufacturer of the car I

own, or simply just get the brakes fixed, I gathered an actual mechanic and an insurance accident

investigator together to help me write a report as to how the brakes failing caused this

accident.ignoring how I shouldnt have been driving the car to begin with, and how I failed to listen to

two other people who told me that there was a problem with my brakes.

My accident is a figment of my imagination.

The other accident? According to the findings of the NTSB.it wasnt imaginary.

Please keep in mind that Im not an aircraft mechanic. I do have a somewhat-basic understanding of

how a plane works, due to my being a bit of a WWII-aircraft buff, but at no time do I insist on being an

expert on aircraft. I am, however, a pretty good automobile mechanic. If you have something electrical

trying to start a fire in a car.you dont continue to drive the darn thing and hope it goes away. You park

the car, and have a mechanic look for whats causing the fire/smoldering.

Yes, obviously, a plane is different from a car.but not that different. You have propulsion systems,

climate control, instruments telling you what the car or plane is doing, and directional control. However,

since you are adding a third dimension of travel (up and down), that is where aircraft differ from

automobiles. However, both modes of transportation can suffer from electrical shorts.

The problem?

Both automobiles AND aircraft can put a serious crimp on your plans for the day, if you neglect the

machinery.

At no point am I suggesting that anything was deliberately ignored. But if this is true, that the plane had

a fire on the previous day, yet flew anywayhow can this be blamed on Cessna? If you have a problemthat leads you to believe that the manufacturer was at fault, and you catch it before someone gets hurt,

that is the time you go yell at the manufacturer, not after you ignore previous warning signs (as noted in

the NTSB report), and continue to use the product anyway.

Im not going to ask why the plane went up to begin with. Im not going to ask why the regular pilot

wasnt in charge of the aircraft, and Im not going to ask why it was so important to take a defective



company plane from the Daytona Beach airport, to Lakeland, Florida, when you could have driven the

same distance with little inconvenience if a properly-functioning plane wasnt available.

Im not going to speculate on why things were done the particular way they were done on the particular

day it all was done. What I am going to do, is look at this incident from a different perspective.

NASCAR is no stranger to aircraft incidents. One only need to look at the Hendrick Racing tragedy, Alan

Kulwicki, and Davey Allisonand knowing all of that, if the NTSB report is to be believed, NASCAR

couldnt cop a clue concerning their own aviation program? Did the term Thou art but mortal never

occur to these people? At what point does ego become something else?

What is even more priceless? This incident involved the very same people who brought you the much-

heralded, improved-driver-safety, Car Of Some Hideous Alternate Tomorrow. A racing series that

thought it had a better idea about how to make a car safer for the racing driver. A racing series that

created a car that does indeed absorb collisions a lot better, yet the basic car design appears tocause

more accidents if you actually try to race it. Contradiction IS a double-edged sword, folkswhen safety

should be the #1 concern in all aspects of your operations.and as in this case, spouting off about

safety, ad-nauseum, while, according to the NTSB report, not practicing it with your own aircraft? What

are we supposed to think?

Am I being a bit harsh here?

Yes, I probably am.

None of the victims deserved this. The two pilots involved (if I recall correctly) were married, and I can

tell you that I honestly wouldnt know what to do if my wife were taken from my side in so abrupt a

manner, so I have a vague idea of what a loss like that would be. Couple that with the losses on the

groundthe law student and her son, she was married, tooand the four-year-old child next doorthis

childs parents never get to experience her first day at schooland Ill be honest with you; the funeral of

a child, even when the child belonged to someone else, is quite possibly the most heart-breaking thing

one will ever see in their life. I hope I never have to see one ever again........

This is supposed to be racing, not real-life. This is supposed to be an escape from the drudge of the

every-day existence, not be a reminder of it.

If the NTSB report is to be believed, this tragedy might possibly have been avertedbut we will never

know. Now that the report is outmaybe some extra light on the subject might cause some changes to

be made to a racing entity thats been mostly proactive when it comes to safety concernsbut Im notgoing to hold my breath.

Thou art but mortal , NASCAR.

we don't need no stinking safety badges!

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