Neil Armstrong transitioned from being a pilot and engineer to become a historical figure of real note when he became the first pilot to manually land a vehicle on a foreign body in space. He stepped outside his craft into an environment that possessed no atmosphere. He climbed down a short ladder before walking cautiously across the surface of the moon.
The word “momentous” is the best we’ve got to describe that extraordinary event. Yet, it doesn’t really capture the weight of the moment. I’m not sure any word can do that feat justice.
Armstrong will be remembered far better than the thousands upon thousands of men and women who innovated, labored, and sweated the small stuff to make his feat possible. Their accomplishments were every bit as valuable as those of Armstrong and his crew. There is a difference in their achievements, however.
Armstrong was there. He and Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin were suited up and committed. If the plan was bad, they would suffer the fate of mistakes made by others. If they performed poorly under pressure, death was a real possibility. Should their best efforts be thwarted by unforeseen circumstances, they would pay the price.
The engineers, technicians, administrators, and politicians left behind on Earth would feel terrible, certainly. But their risk was relatively minor in comparison to the hazards Armstrong, Aldrin, and Command Module Pilot Michael Collins were facing.
Of course, with success, everyone with even the slightest proximity to the project finds a way to take a share of the credit. And perhaps they should. But when something goes wrong, when things don’t go to plan, finger pointing, blame shifting, and the search for plausible excuses becomes an all too common reaction from far too many of us.
“You’ve got to expect things are going to go wrong,” said Armstrong about flying in general and the space program he was such a major contributor to. “And we always need to prepare ourselves for handling the unexpected.”
This past week an Amazon freighter went off the end of a runway in Miami. People died. Others were injured. Within minutes of the aircraft coming to rest, armchair analysts were taking to social media to philosophize freely with their take on the cause of the crash.
Emergency crews arrived at the scene within 30 seconds of getting the call. Bad things happen, but pros stay in the game when things get ugly. That part of the story has received little attention while theories of why the accident happened abound — many of which have been put forward by people with limited, if, any aeronautical knowledge or experience.
Just days earlier a Lancair departing the Gulf Coast of Florida went down roughly a minute after departure, taking a local doctor and nurse practitioner with it. Neither survived.
News reports were quickly issued stating the pilot did not have an FAA medical. The actual headline read, “Pilot who died in Tampa Executive Airport crash flew without FAA medical clearance” — a claim that is entirely false, tremendously hurtful, and borders on journalistic malpractice for suggesting the individual was careless or derelict in his responsibilities as a pilot.
The pilot was actually flying under BasicMed, as the FAA allows. As I have done in the past. As more than 10% of the general aviation pilot population is doing right now. As any reporter with a computer and access to the FAA Airman’s Registry could have discovered in a matter of minutes.
A week prior to these accidents a Piper SuperCub towing a banner went down off the beach in Florida after suffering some malady that made a ditching necessary. The local news took the opportunity to interview beachgoers to get their opinion on the situation.
One said, “I don’t think anybody really expected anything like this today.” Another chimed in, “It was just unusual, you don’t expect to see something like that while you’re out here at the beach trying to enjoy the sun.”
With scintillating commentary like this, is an investigation even necessary?
Certainly, the pilot wasn’t expecting to go swimming that day either. I take nothing away from the beachgoers who were the unwilling witnesses to such an event. Their reaction is genuine. But I take issue with professional news organizations publishing random comments from people who have only a cursory understanding of the event they just witnessed.
We are all at risk every time we climb out of bed to go about our day. Few of us leave the house with the conscious intent of doing shoddy work, taking unnecessary risk, or damaging equipment in our care.
In each of these cases and so many more, the fascination with the spectacle causes people who are ostensibly professionals in their field to do just that. They publish half-truths, or misunderstandings, or factually incorrect material in their rush to get the word out.
Aviation has always suffered this fate. From the earliest days, our actions and intentions have been questioned and second-guessed, often by those who do not understand flight at all. We cannot stop the wider population from supposing we’re foolish, risk tolerant, or indifferent to our duties. Yet we can stand watch on ourselves.
We can reach out to correct these false or rash reports that play fast and loose with the reality of the situation. We can support our own community with an admonition to simply report what is actually known and leave out the conjecture and supposition that damages the reputation of pilots and crews while tarnishing the integrity of those holding a microphone or firing up printing presses.
If we won’t represent ourselves accurately and with honor, who will?
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