Rez O. Lewshun
Save the Profession
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- Jan 19, 2004
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It is growing.. from the Airlines to GA...
After the Accident
From ultimate freedom to incarceration
By Dave Hirschman
“I’m going to drown,” he admitted to himself. “If I can’t get loose right now, I’m actually going to drown.”
His thoughts also turned to his passenger, Kimberly Reed, whom he’d met less than an hour before. She was strapped into the biplane’s front seat, an arm’s reach away.
Was she stuck in the waterlogged airplane, too?
Strub finally unbuckled his harness and swam free from the upside-down airplane that remained partially submerged in the river. He lunged forward to the front cockpit to help his passenger. To his horror, he saw that the biplane’s top wing had struck a submerged rock. The wooden structure was smashed downward and aft, blocking access to—or escape from—the airplane’s front cockpit.
A broad-shouldered, 180-pound carpenter, Strub, 45, recalled stories of people in emergencies being imbued with superhuman strength. But his frantic efforts couldn’t budge the saturated, 3,000-pound Stearman. He rushed to the river’s edge and ran to summon help. Then he sprinted back to the scene of the accident—a normally tranquil, idyllic branch of the Wisconsin River near the mill town of Wisconsin Rapids in the rural, central part of the state.
Photo courtesy Wisconsin Rapids Tribune
Rescue workers followed him to the accident site, and they immediately noticed another danger. Strub’s low-flying airplane had clipped a cluster of power lines that supplied electricity to a nearby paper mill—and those wires were submerged in water. Anyone who stepped into the river was at risk of electrocution.
With each passing moment, Strub realized any chance of saving Reed was slipping away.
“That’s when I lost hope,” said Strub, a private pilot with about 500 flying hours. “There was no way she could still be alive.”
Facts not in doubt
This year, Strub became the first U.S. pilot jailed for a domestic aircraft accident. He pleaded guilty to reduced charges of negligent operation of a motor vehicle and disorderly conduct and was sentenced to 30 days in jail, 150 days home confinement, fines, court costs, and two years probation during which he won’t be allowed to fly.
He wears a pair of electronic monitoring bracelets, isn’t allowed to consume alcohol (even though alcohol played no role in his accident), and can only leave home to attend work. A divorced father of three girls, Strub also awaits a civil trial that could bankrupt him and lay claims to future earnings.
He has been vilified as a criminal, and Reed’s grieving family has called him a murderer.
His case fits an international pattern of criminalizing aviation accidents that dates back at least to 1992 when a French air traffic controller and several Airbus officials were charged in criminal court following an A320 crash in Strasbourg. In 1996, three SabreTech mechanics were charged for improperly loading oxygen canisters on a ValuJet DC-9 that caught fire and crashed in the Everglades. In 2000, two former Aerospatiale officials were charged with criminal counts related to the Concorde crash in Paris. A Swiss court convicted four air traffic managers following a 2002 midair collision between a DHL Boeing 757 and a Tupolev 154M, and two U.S. corporate pilots weren’t allowed to leave Brazil for two months in 2006 after a midair collision between their Embraer Legacy and a Boeing 737 over the Amazon. A Cape Air pilot was sent to jail for hiding a form of diabetes that would have disqualified him from airline flying.
Aviation safety experts fear criminalizing aviation accidents will decrease air safety over the long term by clamping down on the free flow of information that could help avoid future mishaps.
The facts surrounding Strub’s crash aren’t in doubt. Opinions vary, however, about whether his actions amounted to criminal conduct, or whether justice is served by sending him—or other general aviation pilots involved in aircraft accidents—to prison.
Wood County District Attorney Todd Wolf, the Wisconsin official who pressed charges against Strub, declined to comment for this story. But he told a local newspaper he would have pursued the case whether the fatal accident had happened in a car, motor-cycle, or boat.
“I have prosecuted (many) vehicle accidents resulting in death,” he said. “We see these cases in a lot of vehicles.”
As perfect as he could make it Strub inherited his fascination with biplanes from his father, a master craftsman who built two of his own—a Hatz biplane and a SkyBolt.
Strub established a successful carpentry business in the 1990s and earned a private pilot certificate in 2002. His first airplane was a Piper Colt, and then he bought a Luscombe to gain the tailwheel skills needed to fly biplanes, his real love.
He bought a 1941 Super Stearman in 2001 while still in flight training and, in the next year, rejuvenated the fabric and repainted every inch of the 450-horsepower airplane. When he finished, the once-ragged workhorse had been transformed into a gleaming, red jewel.
“I removed and sanded the wings and all the control surfaces,” he said. “I even polished all the stainless steel screws before I put them back on the airplane. I wanted everything to be as perfect as I could make it.”
Strub got dual instruction in his Stearman from a former crop duster, and he learned to fly basic aerobatics in it, too.
“I flew as much as I could—and by the summer of 2004 I had logged about 225 hours in the Stearman,” he said. “I was finally getting to the point where I felt like the airplane was part of me.
I could feel what the airplane was doing, and I could anticipate what it was going to do next. It was a really great feeling.”
Strub had a clean flying record with no accidents, FAR violations, or insurance claims before August 28, 2004, the date his flight ended so tragically a few miles from his home base at Alexander Field-South Wood County Airport.
Strub says he intended to share his passion for flight that day by giving rides in his open-cockpit airplane. The weather was perfect, his Stearman was in top mechanical condition, and he believed his preflight planning and safety precautions were exemplary.
Strub and his passenger both wore parachutes and, during the initial portion of their aerobatic flight, remained at relatively high altitudes—all in accordance with FAA regulations and prudence. Then, on the way back to the airport, Strub descended to treetop height and following the contours of the wide, curving Wisconsin River.
FAR 91.119 places no limit on how low pilots are allowed to fly over sparsely populated areas or open water, as long as they stay at least 500 feet from any persons or vessels and can glide to a landing in case of engine failure without “undue hazard to persons or property on the surface.”
An FAA investigator later cited Strub for “careless and reckless” flying, defining the river as a “congested area,” and said Strub violated minimum safe altitude rules that require pilots to fly at least 1,000 feet above or 2,000 feet horizontal distance from obstacles. Strub said he believed at the time of the accident he was flying over a portion of the river that was free of hazards.
“I thought I was over a section of the river that I knew well,” he said. “But as it turns out, I was a mile and a half upriver from that point—and I was following a different branch. I’d never intentionally fly over any section of river that I didn’t already know.”
After the Accident
From ultimate freedom to incarceration
By Dave Hirschman
- Mark Strub fought against panic as his Stearman sank, inverted, into a broad, slow-moving river. His hands groped for the pair of latches that could release him from his seatbelt harness. But the five-point harness pinned him firmly against the metal seat, where he was also bound to a 30-pound parachute.
“I’m going to drown,” he admitted to himself. “If I can’t get loose right now, I’m actually going to drown.”
His thoughts also turned to his passenger, Kimberly Reed, whom he’d met less than an hour before. She was strapped into the biplane’s front seat, an arm’s reach away.
Was she stuck in the waterlogged airplane, too?
Strub finally unbuckled his harness and swam free from the upside-down airplane that remained partially submerged in the river. He lunged forward to the front cockpit to help his passenger. To his horror, he saw that the biplane’s top wing had struck a submerged rock. The wooden structure was smashed downward and aft, blocking access to—or escape from—the airplane’s front cockpit.
A broad-shouldered, 180-pound carpenter, Strub, 45, recalled stories of people in emergencies being imbued with superhuman strength. But his frantic efforts couldn’t budge the saturated, 3,000-pound Stearman. He rushed to the river’s edge and ran to summon help. Then he sprinted back to the scene of the accident—a normally tranquil, idyllic branch of the Wisconsin River near the mill town of Wisconsin Rapids in the rural, central part of the state.
Rescue workers followed him to the accident site, and they immediately noticed another danger. Strub’s low-flying airplane had clipped a cluster of power lines that supplied electricity to a nearby paper mill—and those wires were submerged in water. Anyone who stepped into the river was at risk of electrocution.
With each passing moment, Strub realized any chance of saving Reed was slipping away.
“That’s when I lost hope,” said Strub, a private pilot with about 500 flying hours. “There was no way she could still be alive.”
Facts not in doubt
This year, Strub became the first U.S. pilot jailed for a domestic aircraft accident. He pleaded guilty to reduced charges of negligent operation of a motor vehicle and disorderly conduct and was sentenced to 30 days in jail, 150 days home confinement, fines, court costs, and two years probation during which he won’t be allowed to fly.
He wears a pair of electronic monitoring bracelets, isn’t allowed to consume alcohol (even though alcohol played no role in his accident), and can only leave home to attend work. A divorced father of three girls, Strub also awaits a civil trial that could bankrupt him and lay claims to future earnings.
He has been vilified as a criminal, and Reed’s grieving family has called him a murderer.
His case fits an international pattern of criminalizing aviation accidents that dates back at least to 1992 when a French air traffic controller and several Airbus officials were charged in criminal court following an A320 crash in Strasbourg. In 1996, three SabreTech mechanics were charged for improperly loading oxygen canisters on a ValuJet DC-9 that caught fire and crashed in the Everglades. In 2000, two former Aerospatiale officials were charged with criminal counts related to the Concorde crash in Paris. A Swiss court convicted four air traffic managers following a 2002 midair collision between a DHL Boeing 757 and a Tupolev 154M, and two U.S. corporate pilots weren’t allowed to leave Brazil for two months in 2006 after a midair collision between their Embraer Legacy and a Boeing 737 over the Amazon. A Cape Air pilot was sent to jail for hiding a form of diabetes that would have disqualified him from airline flying.
Aviation safety experts fear criminalizing aviation accidents will decrease air safety over the long term by clamping down on the free flow of information that could help avoid future mishaps.
The facts surrounding Strub’s crash aren’t in doubt. Opinions vary, however, about whether his actions amounted to criminal conduct, or whether justice is served by sending him—or other general aviation pilots involved in aircraft accidents—to prison.
Wood County District Attorney Todd Wolf, the Wisconsin official who pressed charges against Strub, declined to comment for this story. But he told a local newspaper he would have pursued the case whether the fatal accident had happened in a car, motor-cycle, or boat.
“I have prosecuted (many) vehicle accidents resulting in death,” he said. “We see these cases in a lot of vehicles.”
As perfect as he could make it Strub inherited his fascination with biplanes from his father, a master craftsman who built two of his own—a Hatz biplane and a SkyBolt.
Strub established a successful carpentry business in the 1990s and earned a private pilot certificate in 2002. His first airplane was a Piper Colt, and then he bought a Luscombe to gain the tailwheel skills needed to fly biplanes, his real love.
He bought a 1941 Super Stearman in 2001 while still in flight training and, in the next year, rejuvenated the fabric and repainted every inch of the 450-horsepower airplane. When he finished, the once-ragged workhorse had been transformed into a gleaming, red jewel.
“I removed and sanded the wings and all the control surfaces,” he said. “I even polished all the stainless steel screws before I put them back on the airplane. I wanted everything to be as perfect as I could make it.”
Strub got dual instruction in his Stearman from a former crop duster, and he learned to fly basic aerobatics in it, too.
“I flew as much as I could—and by the summer of 2004 I had logged about 225 hours in the Stearman,” he said. “I was finally getting to the point where I felt like the airplane was part of me.
I could feel what the airplane was doing, and I could anticipate what it was going to do next. It was a really great feeling.”
Strub had a clean flying record with no accidents, FAR violations, or insurance claims before August 28, 2004, the date his flight ended so tragically a few miles from his home base at Alexander Field-South Wood County Airport.
Strub says he intended to share his passion for flight that day by giving rides in his open-cockpit airplane. The weather was perfect, his Stearman was in top mechanical condition, and he believed his preflight planning and safety precautions were exemplary.
Strub and his passenger both wore parachutes and, during the initial portion of their aerobatic flight, remained at relatively high altitudes—all in accordance with FAA regulations and prudence. Then, on the way back to the airport, Strub descended to treetop height and following the contours of the wide, curving Wisconsin River.
FAR 91.119 places no limit on how low pilots are allowed to fly over sparsely populated areas or open water, as long as they stay at least 500 feet from any persons or vessels and can glide to a landing in case of engine failure without “undue hazard to persons or property on the surface.”
An FAA investigator later cited Strub for “careless and reckless” flying, defining the river as a “congested area,” and said Strub violated minimum safe altitude rules that require pilots to fly at least 1,000 feet above or 2,000 feet horizontal distance from obstacles. Strub said he believed at the time of the accident he was flying over a portion of the river that was free of hazards.
“I thought I was over a section of the river that I knew well,” he said. “But as it turns out, I was a mile and a half upriver from that point—and I was following a different branch. I’d never intentionally fly over any section of river that I didn’t already know.”