Some question safety at Fly-In

Published 9:00 pm Saturday, July 9, 2005

If you ask some of the 1,000-plus pilots at the Arlington Fly-In whether they think flying their experimental homebuilt planes is a safety hazard, they’ll shrug off the question.

“It’s really blown out of proportion; there’s no safety issue with the experimental design,” said Chris Hand, who flew in his Cessna 140 from Bremerton on Thursday. “There’s a lot of car crashes, too.”

Andrew Seefried, who flew his experimental plane from British Columbia and has been flying for the last 25 years, said flying is safer than skiing down a mountain.

“The sport is as safe as you make it,” he said. “I think it’s safer than a lot of other sports.”

That’s the type of attitude that has Karen Corbitt concerned.

Corbitt’s husband of 13 years, Don, died in 1999 when his plane nose-dived near the southeast end of Arlington Municipal Airport on the first day of the annual Fly-In. The Bellevue resident said the airport was ill-prepared to handle crashes that day and that pilots’ bravado could lead to more tragedies.

“Pilots in general tend to negate the hazards,” said Corbitt, 41. “They love to quote statistics about how more people die in cars than planes. However, if you get in a car accident, there’s less of a chance of dying.”

A report from the National Transportation Safety Board said inexperience and pilot error may have led to Don Corbitt’s crash. But Karen Corbitt said the Northwest Experimental Aircraft Association, which puts on the Fly-In, and the Arlington Fire Department could have done more to save her husband’s life.

The safety board report said Corbitt was still alive after impact. It was two to two and a half minutes before firefighters used water to extinguish the blaze that ensued after Corbitt’s plane crashed, the report said.

Safety precautions have improved over the years, but the Fly-In is still an at-your-own risk event, Karen Corbitt said. Barbara Tolbert, the Fly-In’s executive director, didn’t want to say whether she thinks safety has improved since 1999, when the Fly-In had a rash of negative publicity because of crashes and emergency landings before, during and after the Fly-In.

Tolbert said only that the Fly-In has little control over what happens to pilots when they’re in the air.

“We’re a very safe event,” she said. “We’re as safe as the freeway. And on the freeway, the state patrol doesn’t control how you drive.”

Corbitt disagrees, saying there are more precautions that should be taken. She wonders, for example, what would have happened to her husband if firefighters had used foam instead of water.

The day before Corbitt’s crash in 1999, another Bellevue man died when his single-engine experimental plane took off from the Arlington Airport and clipped 115,000-volt power lines. He wasn’t technically part of the Fly-In, which started the next day.

Three days later, a conventional light plane crashed an hour and 15 minutes after taking off from the Fly-In, killing a passenger and seriously injuring two others. The next day two planes had to make emergency landings. Neither landing resulted in injuries.

Home-built planes, including ultralights, are considered experimental, but they still must meet Federal Aviation Administration requirements. Each experimental plane must get a certificate of airworthiness from the FAA and be flown by a trained pilot.

Tolbert said safety is obviously something the Fly-In takes into consideration. She shied away from talking about past incidents, however, saying she has lost friends in crashes before and that an emotional reaction to the crashes gives a biased opinion about the Fly-In’s safety record.

The Fly-In hasn’t had any years as difficult since 1999. But a scattering of crashes with planes connected to the Arlington event has some people calling for more cautious aviation.

Bill Bleasner, a 71-year-old Spokane resident, lost his brother, Jim, in 2000 when he and two friends crashed their Cessna 180 into the side of a mountain on their way back from the Arlington Fly-In.

“In a small plane, if something goes wrong, you don’t pull over to the curb,” Bleasner said. “But that’s the risk they’re willing to take.”

Bleasner said he respects experimental aviators, but he wondered when an enchantment with planes becomes almost an addiction. His brother, he said, always told him, “If I go, I hope I go when I’m in my plane.”

Julie Londo, a 50-year-old Everett resident, lost her husband, Jim, last August when her husband’s brother lost control of a plane flying back from a fly-in in McMinnville, Ore., during bad weather. Jim Londo had helped start the Arlington Fly-In, which has been a five-day event since 1988. The 60-year-old man had been flying for the last 35 years, and it was his life, Julie Londo said.

Pilots who get the urge to get home no matter the weather can create dangerous situations, though.

“There’s nothing more important than safety,” she said. “You lose a day’s work, but you save your life.”

Reporter Chris Collins: 425-339-3436 or ccollins@heraldnet.com.